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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A 8T0BY OF PSYCHE, 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



By M. E. BLANCHARD. 







JIJN 25 ]S g5 




BOSTON : 
ADDISON C. GETCHELL, PUBLISHER. 

1885. 






Copyright, 

1885, 

By M. E. Blanchard. 



Printed by A. C. Getchell, 6 Pearl Street, Boston. 



My Critics. 

They liave their voices, I ray thon^lit ; 
And they were never in Egypt. 

Bayard Taylor. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

A Story of Psyche 1 

Pan's Departure 18 

Phlegethon 19 

Lethe to 13acchus 22 

Night in the Ark 24 

©reams of JImmortalitg. 

The Soul 29 

The Spirit's Destiny • . 31 

The Welcome Home 35 

To-night 36 

Friends Unseen 39 

An Echo from Pre-existence .... 42 

A Fancy 43 

The Immortal ....... 44 

The Grasses 46 

Columbus 49 

The Artist's Vision 50 

Nightfall in June 54 

The Sounds of Night 56 

Strike Thou the Harp 58 

The Coronation of the Holy Mother . . 62 

Mary, Mother of our God .... 64 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



The Legend of the Violets .... 66 

On the Lake 69 

The Reapers 78 

The Sand Storm 79 

Egypt 80 

Tropic Reeds 81 

My Castle 82 

i^etrospecti'on. 

My Past 84 

The Broken Lute 86 

Days Departed 87 

The Old Garden 89 

My Flower 91 

A Lost Summer 93 

Through the Storm 95 

Leavitt's Lane 98 

Afternoon in the Country .... 102 

Sacrificed to Moloch 105 

In a Ball-room lOS 

The Card-player 110 

Unexpressed 113 

Poesy 116 

ySPIRATION 118 

Nature's Homage to the Poet .... 121 

With Keats 123 

The Brook's Lament for Burns ... 126 

The Poet-Infidel 128 

A Greeting to Poets 130 



CONTENTS. . VU 

lEtscellancotts i^oems. 

The City by Lamplight 133 

IJeformers 135 

The Cost of Greatness 137 

The Heights 138 

The River 140 

Magurrawoc Mountain 142 

The Eising Moon at Sea 145 

The Moon's Vigil 146 

A Winter Scene 148 

Without and Within 149 

A June Morning 152 

The Growth of the Buttercups . . . 153 

Thistledown 154 

Had I Loved You and You Loved Me . . 155 

The Penitent 158 

Love Song 159 

Exiled and Isolated 160 

A Glance Forward 162 

Two Hearts 163 

The Unattainable 166 

A Voyage in Quest 167 

Storm Fancies 170 

"Hercules" 172 

The Child 176 

The Duke 179 

Sea-charmed 184 

The Flight of Madeline 186 

The Upas Tree 191 

The Love of a Priest 194 

The Lady and the Rose 198 

Looking Down : a Ballad 200 

Before the King 211 

Together in Thought 214 

" A Man of the World " 216 

Moan Thro' the Pines, O Wind ... 218 



VIU CONTENTS. 

To A White Rose 219 

Guy 221 

After Long Years 223 

The Eagle and his Mate 226 

A Life Misspent 229 

Divided Ways 230 

Death the All-pitying 232 

The Body's Immortality 235 

Imaginings 237 

Whither Away? 238 

Across the Desert 239 

The Atheist and the Fool .... 241 



Doggerel 244 

A Dog's Soliloquy 245 

Grandmother's Cupboard 247 

A Day in March 249 

Sal 253 



A STOEY OF PSYCHE * 



I. 

THE BROW OF OLYMPUS. SUNSET. 

Psyche, Avith lingering steps, moves clown the mountain. Far 
below, Pan wakes his pipe. The notes float upward faintly. 

PSYCHE. 

[Sings. 

Tell me, O drowsy roses, 
Lov'd of the dew and wind and golden sun, 
Where my lost love reposes 
When day her lattice closes 
To turn her radiant smile 
Upon some happy isle 
By gods unwon. 

I haunt the dewy places 
Where late among the blooms his steps were led, 
And watch the light which traces 
With sunset's fiery graces 

* Psyche means tlie soul, Alice. — Geo. Macdonald. 



2 A STORY OF PSYCHE. 

Yon group of branches green 
Against the western sheen, 
Golden and red. 

I hear the bkds sing o'er us, 
In voices sweet and clear, their last good-night, 
And heed the liquid chorus 
Of waters that adore us. 

While lilies lean and press 
Their scented loveliness 
On ripples bright. 

But he whose eye was clearest 
To trace the many forms of harmony, 
Whose praise was the sincerest 
For that which he held dearest 
In music's realm of might. 
Whose tones are infinite 
As agony, — 

Is gone, I know not whither ; 
And I, who long have borne immortal pow'r. 
Whose tears these roses wither. 
Will bid my brothers hither, 

To wail with me as for the dead, 
And be of hope uncomforted 
In this lone hour. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. 6 

She utters a louil summons. There is a rush and outcry, and the 
gods thi'ong towards her through the trees, angrj% anxious, with 
Mercury in the lead. 

JUPITEE. 

Dost know, O miserable slave of grief, 
Who singest of thy shame where never yet 
Weak word was breathed to these sacred trees, 
That he who claims th}^ tears — 

ABAKIS. 

[From above. 

Nay, Jupiter, 
Unbend thy brows, and let not tone of thine 
Profane these boughs, w^hose leaves, as bright 

as eyes. 
Look on us through the dusk. 

Our Psyche weeps, — 
'Tis meet that w^e should solace, and not chide. 

MERCURY. 

Right, brother ; female things need sympathy 
As babes need milk. She loves — and Aveeps, 

of course. 
And joys more in her tears than we in all 
Our conquests won, and holds out hands to say. 
In tragic guise. See, can ye do, fond friends. 
The tricks of woe more deftly ? 



4 A STORY OF PSYCHE. 

ABARIS. 

Mercury, 
Thou, who didst make frail woman, art most 

wise 
In woman's foi lings. As for me — 

JUPITER. 

Enough ! 
I came not here to hear a coxcomb's boast, 
Or watch his pranks aerial whilst the breeze 
Shivers beneath his piercing arrow's touch 
With just disdain. Guide nearer to the clouds 
Thy long, ridiculous, fantastic steed ; 
And ye, dull mouthing fools, who hem me in, 
Press backward . . . room ! 

Brave Triton, wake thy shell, 
And quiet yonder idler who outpours 
His goatish strength in sound. 

ArOLLO. 

Whom meanest thou ? 
Not Pan, our best-beloved ? Jupiter, 
Thou art distraught with haste and bitter cares, 
And speakest that which, in a calmer mood. 
Thy justice would contemn. 

JUPITER. 

True ! Pardon, friends, but shame is hard to 
bear. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. O 

Triton winds a long blast from his trumpet. The music below 
ceases. Psyche, abashed, glides towards Abaris, who thrusts into 
earth the large head of his arrow and leans with folded arms against 
its stem. The gods, silent, beautiful, with grand brows and majestic 
stature, form in huge circle about these two. The arrow lilts above 
them its fern-shaped tip, delicate, glittering, vil)rant Avith the pres- 
sure. Psyche i-ests her hand on the arm of Abaris. 

MERCURY. 

Dost thou remember, Psyche, that dread day 
When, for the first, I led thee up these heights, 
And gave the cup whose rich ambrosial store 
Made thee immortal? Thou wert human then, 
And weeping for thy spouse most bitter tears. 
Which now are ended — 

PSYCHE. 

Hermes, is it well 
For souls made large by immortality 
To let one feeble love suffice for all 
The stern needs of existence ? 

Lenvah claims 
No portion of that love which Cupid won, 
But occupies a niche, erst tenantless 
In my full life, which only he alone 
Can lighten, as the sun at morning lights 
The hollows of the sea, till all the tide 
Is warm'd and brighten'd and made glorious. 
Loves numerous are requisite for some, 
As many leaves are needed for a rose 
To make it perfect. And yet loves there be 



6 A STORY OF rSYCHE. 

Which flower like the calla, one wide spathe, 
White, dewy, sweet, exquisite, op'ning out 
Its fine large petal to the golden dawn, 
Magnificent in beauty. That my love 
Is not the lily, but the complicate 
Ked-hearted blossom, lov'd of Venus' self 
And stern Harpocrates, is not, dear gods. 
The fault of Psyche. 

APOLLO. 

Father, dost thou hear? 
And dost thou note the splendor on her face, 
And how her tall lithe figure seems to sway 
With fervor, as the reed at the wind's touch? 
Her slim feet scarcely press those deathless 

flow'rs. 
But, buo^^'d and luminous, she floats in dusk. 

JUPITER. 

[With emotion. 

Great is our Psyche ! 

ALL. 

Aye, and great her love ! 

PSYCHE. 

So great, O brothers, that it covers you 
In its wide folds, as doth the cloak of night 
Cover the hosts of birds. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. / 

That I repine 
Under the loss of him who, clothed in flesh, 
And using human speech, hath led my thoughts 
Into the snare of sorrow, will be borne 
With patience by my kindred — 

ALL. 

To the end ! 

PSYCHE. 

Then get you gone, l)rave Abaris, to where. 
Sick unto death or cast on stormy shores, 
Or rapt in dreams born of the locust's bloom, 
My Lenvah tarries. 

JUPITER. 

Seek him through the world, 
And pause not till thine eyes with mournful gaze 
Have seen this serpent human who hath wrought 
Over our Psyche's joy the spell of woe, 

[Gathering- anger. 

Till all the glory of our noble race. 
Its wisdom and its valor, vex the heart 
Which hungers for this being, crudely made. 
And fickle to the core. 

PSYCHE. 

Justice, oTeat Jove ! 



8 A STORY OF PSYCHE. 

JUPITER. 

Thy king is ever just. Mount, Abaris ; 

And thou, Apollo, tune thy harp of gold 

And yield its music. Luna's train draws nigh. 



The moon rolls its glittering ball up over the black ti'ee preci- 
pices. Abaris is seen on his mighty arrow, which scintillates before 
him and behind like a diamond bar. Psyche, alone, with drooping 
head, stands in the circle. The strong, cold light beats on the 
upraised faces of the immortals, and over their gleaming limbs. 

And they encompass Psyche, who is the Soul. 

But she pines for Lenvah. Pines, though Apollo's lyre throbs 
with the stars. 



II. 

circe's bower. 

Lenvah is seen sleeping. Enter Circe, bearing her magic cup. 
CIRCE. 

Up, drowsy boy ! drink of my wine once more, 
And tell me yet again of her who walks 
Olympus' awful steep. 

lenvah. 

Thou cruel queen, 
Give me my strength, that I may pass from here. 
And plead on bended knees for her divine, 
All-generous forgiveness ! 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. U 

CIKCE. 

Thou art wild. 
Dost think, pale love, thy precious lips will touch 
The face beprais'd of Cupid while my spell 
Has wit to keep thee in my fonder arms ? 

LENVAH. 

O Circe ! 

CIECE. 

Drink ! 

[Presses the cup to Iiis lips. 

At length the chami is wrousfht, 
And thou art mine ! 

[Euter Abaris, unseen. 
ABAllIS. 

Oh, vroe ! woe black with shame I 
Our Psyche loves a beast Avhose swinish notes 
Stiffen the very foliaore with fear, 
And cast a plague over this beauteous isle, 
And turn these limpid waters into tilth, 
And paint a charmers face with wicked scowls 
Sterner than fierce Medusa's. 

Let us mount, 

Mine airy steed, to where the purer air 
Shall calm my reeling senses. 

CIRCE. 

[To Lenvab. 

Brute, be sone I 
Mix with my herds, and be no more a man. 



10 A STORY OF PSYCHE. 

III. 

THE PALACE OF JUriTEK. 

Zeus, with the eagle at lus feet, sits on his lofty throne in the 
long, white, silent, sunlit hall, brilliant v.ith flowers. Below the 
throne Apollo leans on his lyre in pcnsivothought. 

He grieves for Psyche, lie who wears the laurel in memory of 
Daphne's doom. For Psyche, who walks with gods and holds them 
dear, covets a mortvil love. 

[Singing from without. 

The eagle waits at a monarch's feet, 

Xoi pines for his native skies, 
And the thunder euros its aiant force 

Till a god doth ])id it rise ; 
And our loard, whose soul is song, 

And whose eyes are full of fire , 
Is bruis'd by the grief for another's grief. 

For a vain desire. 

The ocean keeps a narrow bound, 

Thou2:h its force can shake the rocks. 
And the planets yield to the might of law 

Above the earthquake-shocks ; 
But a lofty love defies 

All power the earth has known. 
And mocks at the sway of time and change. 

To lean on self alone. 

[punter Abaris. 

JurrrER. 
Hail, Abaris ! 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. 11 

ABARIS. 

[Bending low. 

Great Father ! Mighty King ! 

Apollo comes forward and sinks with languor on a broad step of 
the throne. The dark eagle looks down over his naked shoulder. 
Jove's massive form rises high above. The stern lines ot his face 
show the more vividly under the crown of olive. His sceptre, held 
erect, burns in the sunlight. 

JUPITER. 

AVhat ticliiiirs of the missino: ? 

ABARIS. 

I have sought 
For ten long days through Telhis' realm, and 

called 
With tears the name of Lenvah, but no sound 
Save Echo's oTievins: tone — 

APOLLO. 

Then Charon's frown 
Has stilled his craven heart — 

JUPITER. 

My son, take heed. 
Our Abaris has knowledge of the youth, 
I see it by his countenance all wan 
With grievous thought, and by the flashing eyes. 
And the fierce lips that press on the clench'd 
teeth, 



12 A STOKY OF PSYCHE. 

To check unseemly speech. His presence fills 
The hall with a strange tumult, an intense 
And fiery discordance, till the air 
Clano's round us fierce vibrations. 



Enter Ganymede, who moves up the room with a buoyant, joy- 
ous tread, his head erect, his sweet eyes full of dreams, the curls 
flung back from the low brows, the face childlike, eager, fair. He 
salutes the king with a careless, jaunty ease. The eagle flies towards 
him and settles on his wrist. He holds it high over his head and 
laughs into its eyes. 

Ganymede, 
Draw nectar for Apollo's worthy priest 
Spent with the toil of travel. 

GAXY31EDE. 

[Absently. 

Gladly, sire. 



IV. 

SCEXE THE SAME. 
Jupiter alone with Psyche, who kneels by the throne, weeping. 

JUPITER. 

Thou hast heard this tale which took in tellins: 
The Ions: hour of noon : of how thy lover 
Roots among the swine on Circe's island. 
Put dull grief aside, and cast far from thee, 
As a thing accurs'd, this love unholy. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. 13 

PSYCHE. 

Wise counsellor, firm ruler of the gods, 
And mighty on Olympus, let me crave 
Thy royal pity ! I would go from hence, 
And rescue with due zeal from out the spell 
Of this vile beauty him who is the kino: 
Of my sad fate ; whose smile I cannot lose 
Without such throes of anguish that death's self 
Is not more bitter. 

Earthlins: thouo:h he be, 
Yet is he worthy to commune with gods, 
And be their equal. On those happy eves 
When, threading after Pan the woodland ways, 
Have I with wonder heard his tones awake 
The birds to singing, as no pipe of reed 
Had skill to wake them. And his face, O King, 
Is noble as Apollo's, and he moves 
As monarchs move, bearins: himself erect 
And looking with full gaze upon the world. 
Sire, all my life is darken'd by his loss. 
And thou wilt oTant me absence to reclaim 
From ill the man I love. 

JUPITER. 

Go, Psyche true ; 
And if thy task be wrought, then shall he know 
The boon of godhood, and ascend with thee 
Olympus' steep, to sit at my right hand. 



14 A STORY OF PSYCHE. 

V. 

THE ^JEAN ISLAND. 

Psyche is seen in the distance feeding with acorns a herit of 
swine. 

Enter Circe, Avilh Lenvah in the shape of a boar. 

CIRCE. 

Dost knoYf yon fool, who, without warning meet, 
Came yesternight by stealth to my domain 
Sacred to sorcery? (Thy grunts assent.) 
Who hopes, unseen of Circe, to decoy 
From out the droves her Lenvah, and restore 
By her chaste love and pity to its form 
Thy soul debased. 

Let her assert her strength. 

[Smiting him with her wand. 

Go ! wallow with thy kind about her feet. 

[Exit. 
PSYCHE. 

Lenvah, dear Lenvah, where in all this herd 
Of hungry swine, who fill my soul with fear, 
Art thou repining ? 

[Enter Lenvah. 

Gods ! methinks I trace 
In yonder hideous l)oar, ])lack, bristling, fierce. 
Him whom I seek. 

She wanders from the herd. The boar, with neb tossing up the 
dust, follows slowlj'. Psyche, with trembling, at length comforts 
him. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. 



15 



Nay, but my love can save 
And ofive ai>:ain to manhood all the o^race 
And valor lost. 

Lenvah, my Lenvah, know 
That she who looks on thee vrith streaming eyes 
Is one who from Olympus stole of yore 
To kiss thy lips. Beloved, I would fain 
Save thee from all the shame of this estate, 
And woo thee back to honor ; yea, and guide 
Thee upward to that palace where high Jove 
Rules in his wisdom ; where the gods shall greet, 
And love, and bless and o'ive thee of their love. 

[Kneels to cm'orace him. 

The boar rushes forward, his huge bodj' quivering ^Yith rage, and 
tramples on her fair white limbs. A shout is heard, and Abaris, 
breaking through the leafage, routs with his arrow the blood-stained, 
maddened brute. 



Ha! ha! 



CIRCE. 



[In the distance. 



PSYCHE. 



Lost ! 



[Waking from a swoon. 



ABARIS. 

[To Circe. 

Curses upon thee, harlot ! 



16 A STORY OF PSYCHE, 



VI. 

Jupiter's palace, time, midnight. 

Down the vast white hall, blazing with light and thronged with 
Amnion's* courtiers, Psj'che, on a litter, is borne into the iiresenoe 
of tlie king. The gods file back on either side with hushed lips ard 
pallid laces, and she is placed below the throne steps. Abaris casts 
himself down at her feet. Apollo lifts her head and rests it pity- 
ingl\' against his arm. Her face, turned to the concourse, looks worn 
and ghastly. 



JUPITER. 

[In a deep voice, rising 

Psyche, hast thou won? 
Is love sufficient, in the hour of need, 
To save a Lenvah ? 

PSYCHE. 

Nay, never once ! 



My Psyche — 



APOLLO. 

[Brokenly. 



ABARIS. 

My belov'd — 

JUPITER. 

Nay, never once ! 

He stretches his arms out "with a slow, mournful gesture over the 
Soul of Piission and the Soul of Song. 

The gods kneel silently in long white lines, gazing on ♦' the maj- 
esty of a great despair." They weep not : their grief is mute. They 
only kneel, and the light falls on the face on Apollo's breast. 

* Jupiter. 



A STORY OF PSYCHE. 17 

[Singing from without. 

Never, nay, never once. 
Though Psyche weep in anguish 

tears of blood, 
And give to torture her white 

beauteous Soul, 
And tread the wine-press 

of a patience long. 
And beat with lu'uised hands 

the gates of prayer, 
Is vice redeemed by Love, — 

Nay, never once ! 



18 pan's departure. 



PAN'S DEPARTURE. 

A hush is on the wood, and the round sun 
Sinks, phimmet-like, to sound a sea of gold. 
While the wan lilies droop in grief, and fold 
Their weary lids, as over herb and tree 
Steals with its feldspar hues expectantly 
The early dew ; while in their ample nest 
The robins stir beneath their mother's breast 
And wait the steps of him whose course is run. 
He comes ! the god ! the minstrel ! and his hand 
Bears with a listless clasp the magic flute 
Whose fine wild music man shall long deplore. 
Night bends her regal head in sorrow mute, 
While darkness falls to cover all the land, 
And Pan, grand Pan, has pass'd forevermore ! 



PIILEGETHON. 



19 



PHLEGETHON. 

List ! yc tame waters flowing o'er the earth, 

And hear my waves of flame 
Sweep through dim Hades, where unkindly Pain 
Holds sway 
For aye, 
Nor questions of my curse nor whence I came. 

My tide is ruddy as that tide which swept 

O'er Waterloo in wrath. 
Aye, red as that which down from Etna's height 
Through green 
Is seen, 
Cutting with cruel force its lava path. 

I roll forever and forever on. 

While shadows wrap me o'er. 
And ghastly forms beside me wail and wail, — 
The dead 
Who tread 
With burning feet my incandescent shore. 



20 PHLEGETHON. 

Think not to mimic with your puny grief 

My horror-haunted waves 
Which tell of battle-din and gory slain, 
And cries 
That rise 
From heroes who are marching to their graves ; 

Which know of crucifixion and the dark 

That shuts the martyr round, 
While gods forsake and man reviles in hate, 
And Scorn, 
The strono', 
Comes with his spear to deal the final wound. 



Ah ! bitter avoc to me, who strive to gain 

The summer day which smiles 
On scented boughs along the briny shore ; 
To trace 
The grace 
Of melting cloud and cape and woodland isles, 



And hear the happy birds that trill their lays 

With one accordant voice, 
While Echo through the granite sends her tone, 
And sings 
Of things 
That cheer the eye and make the heart rejoice. 



PHLEGETHON. 21 

Woe ! bitter woe to me ! But unto ye, 

O flippant streams that brawl 
Along the shallow channels day by clay, 
And lift 
Vile drift 
To vex the rock and clog the pebbles small, 

Woe dire to ye, who have receiv'd in full 

Your consolation meet, 
And tend with heedless course toward the dark ; 
While I 
Who cry 
For light, blest light, the dawn at last may 
greet. 



22 



LETHE TO BACCHUS. 



LETHE TO BACCHUS. 

Fill high the oblivious bowl. — Mrs. Hemans. 

Bring me thy cup of rosy glow, 

Thou valiant god with the laughing eyes, 
And dip from my waves of silent flow 

A draught that even thine own outvies ; 
Dip from my stream so still}^ and sweet, 

A nectar richer than all thy wine. 
And drink, oh, drink with joy complete 

To those who in gloom repine ! 

Lo ! from the realm of beinsf cold 

They come to me with their weary tread, 
The lost and lonely, the weak and old, 

To mix with the kingly dead ; 
And as they quaflf of my healing wave, 

My wave pellucid that hath no stain. 
The past no more can Thought enslave. 

For Memory dies with Pain. 



LETHE TO BACCHUS. 23 

Never a shame that stung the pride, 

And never a want the old time bore, 
And never a wish ungratified, 

Can into the life its virus pour ; 
And Passion, losing her wonted sway, 

Puts out her taper at Death's behest. 
While the body achill turns back to clay, 

KeoTcttino: nothino* — nor worst, nor best. 

So bring thy cup of rosy glov/. 

Thou valiant god with the laughing eyes, 
And dip from my wave of silent flow 

A draught that ever thine own outvies ; 
And when thy triumphs are sung no more. 

And thy vines are dead on earth's dead breast. 
Then lead thy band to my quiet shore. 

And drink to the Stream of Rest ! 



24 NIGHT IN THE ARK. 



NIGHT IN THE ARK. 

The wife of Noah communes with her own heart. 

I gaze out over the waters, 
Cold, fathomless and wide, 

As the sun through smoky vapor 
Sinks in the solemn tide. 

And near me a little linnet. 
Uplifting its drooping head, 

Sings plaintively through the silence 
As if of the great world dead. 

And its mate comes at my calling. 
To nestle against my cheek, 

Its bright round eyes dilated 
As if with the wish to speak. 

And its heart beats on my fingers, 
Dismay'd by this wrath of God 

Which has hidden the giant mountain 
With the rose of the valley sod, — 



NIGHT IN THE ARK. 25 

And swept from the realm of being 

A race that forgot His will, 
And turn'd to the wrong through weakness, 

Because He had made them ill, — 

Not orivino^ them skill sufficient 

To conquer the inner foe. 
And climb up into the godhead 

By stages however slow, — 

To grasp at the highest glory 

As a heritage their own, 
Not bought by the blood of slaughter, 

But won by their needs alone. 



The bird has ceas'd from singing, 
And call'd to its drowsy mate, 

And the ark sweeps on in darkness 
O'er the earth made desolate, — 

Piercing the floating herbage, 
Still odorous and green, 

That late in calm field spaces 
Greeted the dawns serene. 

While trees torn from the forest. 
Once stately, full of song. 

Drift heavily from wave to wave. 
Trailing their branches long. 



26 NIGHT IN THE AKK. 

And ever and anon the ark 

Smiting their trunks of gray, 
Reels backward, shudd'ring thro' its length, 

As if in agony. 

While starting from a troubled sleep 

The lion shakes his mane, 
And sends far outward in the gloom 

A roar of fear and pain. 

There in the stifling darkness, 

With lips athirst for blood. 
He listens, couchant, to the wind 

Driving the fatal flood. 

I hear his hot breath stirring 

The dead leaves of his lair. 
And fancy how those startled eyes 

Lighten with angry glare. 



Slowly the moon's wan lustre 
Glitters the current o'er, 

Showing such breadths of ocean 
As stars shall light no more ; 

Showing such death and horror 
As none can comprehend, 

Save on that hour, far off and dim, 
When worlds shall have an end. 



NIGHT IN THE ARK. 27 

The trees like fleets unnumber'd 

Keep yet their aimless way, 
Each guided by a wheel of roots 

Churning unsteadily. 

A sea-gull torn and lifeless 

Eests on yon mass of bloom, 
Its limp head swinging o'er the wave 

And outlin'd on the o^loom. 

And there ! — an arm uplifted — 

And there ! — a kingly face, 
Calm, beautiful and pallid 

In death's ideal o^race. 

Serenely in the moonlight 

It drifts adown the tide. 
As though the yearnings of a life 

In death were satisfied. 

As though no wreck and ruin 

Found echo in that peace 
Wherein all woes are quieted 

In sleep that shall not cease. 

Onward, forever onward. 

Our mighty craft is toss'd. 
And Japheth moaning in his dream 

Speaks of a garden lost. 



28 NIGHT IN THE ARK. 

And once again the lion, 
Upstarting in the dark, 

Utters that deep despairing cry 
Which rings throughout the ark. 

A challenge to those forces 
Which build but to destroy. 

And filling life with woe supreme, 
Deaden the sense to joy. 

A curse on all the evils 

Which weary heart and brain. 

So that of years there is not one 
We would live o'er again. 



Bej^oncl the sunset's gates of gold 
'Tis said a land of glory lies, 

Where life takes on a larger scope. 
It may be so ; 

For that which is hath marvel strange, 

And that which may be cannot hold 
More wonder than dismays our eyes. 



THE SOUL. 

Fair Wand'rer from a continent unknown, 
Cast by rude waves upon the shores of night, 
With features wan, and brow from which the 

bright 
Crown hath been lost, I hear thee call thine own 
And 'quire thy way beyond this dark . But none , 
None heed thy grief, or comprehend aright 
Thy language beautiful, while o'er thy sight 
The tears come fast, and wildly thou dost moan. 
Around, the hills are mute : the fir and pine 



30 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Keep their dim watch unmov'd ; the waters flow 
Unheeded on. Yet ah ! yon tints divine 
Deepen to dawn with ever-changing glow, 
Hope strikes her harp and sings above thy woe, 
"Found is the crown, Belov'd, and I am thine." 



THE spirit's destiny. 31 



THE SPIRIT'S DESTINY. 

What, O Spirit, dost thou hear 
From the mystic hemisphere, 
Standing in thy mail of flesh, 
With thy godhood's consciousness ? 
Kound thee roars the battle strange 
Of eternal time and change ; 
And thine alien feet would fain 
Press thy native sod again. 

Coldly to thy homesick eyes 
Doth the summer sun uprise. 
And beneath its rosy light 
Thou beholdest frost and blight ; 
While the music of the wave 
Tells of darkness and the grave. 
Sending through the fleeting day 
Desolation and dismay. 

In thy inmost self I see 
Courage, truth and constancy. 
And a lono^ins: and a will 



32 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

That would highest things fulfil. 

What though age shall smite thy heart, 

And thine armor fall apart, 

And alone thou goest down 

Death's dark way with corpses strown : 



Still forever through the real 
Shalt thou press to the ideal. 
All thy yearning being full 
Of a fire unquenchable, — 
Sacred flames that brightly glow 
Through the sensual and low, 
Like an altar's light that gleams 
Through a dungeon's mouldy seams. 

Dost thou in thy dreams espy 
Glimpses of a perfect sky 
Circling an elysian shore, 
Lov'd of thee in days of yore ? — 
Shining sands where swells a tide 
Scintillant and glorified. 
O'er whose waves with steady tread 
Walk the living and the dead. 

Those who late have left the field. 
Bearing neither spear nor shield ; 
Those who never trod the earth, 
Being heavenly from their birth, — 



THE spirit's destiny. 33 

And do they, the angels, cry. 
With an eager tone and eye, 
" Tell us of the journey far, 
To the realms where mortals are? 

"Not for spoil ye went away. 

Nor for honors, which decay. 

Nor to rear an altar hi^'h 

To some mythic Deity ; 

But ye went, methinks, to gain 

Strength through weakness, joy through pain, 

To develop, to improve. 

Strive, aspire, and hope and love. 

" And again upon the quest. 
When your souls have drunk of rest. 
Shall ye pass with willing feet. 
Other starred spheres to greet, — 
Worlds whose light hath never shone 
On that world so late your own, — 
And in human form as-ain 
Ye shall cope with human pain. 

" IMany are the years that lie 
Waiting in infinity : 
Centuries through which the tide 
Of your lives shall slowly glide. 
As a river deep and grand 



34 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Eolleth on from land to land. 
Death is but life's overfloAV, 
Not the current ebbing low. 

" Talk not then of sorrow's stress 
Midst this joy so measureless, 
Nor of loss and petty cares, 
While such gain life's record ])ears ; 
Nor of toil, while o'er your tears 
Eoll for aye the patient spheres ; 
Nor of right by wrong o'ercast. 
For the right shall win at last ! " 

O thou Spirit ! brave the night. 
If indeed it leads to light ; 
Look thou always to the goal. 
Though the clouds about thee roll ; 
Keep thyself from idols mean, 
Thou, belov'd of Love's unseen; 
Strive forever for the good, 
Crown'd with hope's beatitude ! 



THE WELCOME HOME. 35 



THE WELCOME HOME. 

'Twas morninoj in heaven, 'twas niirht on the 
earth, 

And angels were gather'd death's river anear. 
To welcome a soul to the holier birth. 

And sing, in their gladness, an anthem of 
cheer. 
The pure and the loyal, the loving and blest. 

All join'd in the music of perfect accord : 
"We welcome thee, spirit, by sorrow oppress'd, 

Yea, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! 

" We welcome thee home from the darkness and 
care. 

The trial and weariness, doubting and fear. 
Hail ! blest of our Father, no longer despair, 

The journey is ended, the guerdon is here ; 
Here, safe in the Kingdom, no more to depart. 

Where love, never fading, is sorrow's reward, 
Are all the dear idols long lost from thy heart, — 

Oh, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! " 



36 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



TO-NIGHT. 



E.W. 



What realm to-night, 
Lit by the dawn which floods the spheres beyond, 
Dost thou, O white 
And happy soul. 
Tread with companions fond ? 

Methinks I hear 
Thy voice steal o'er me, as thro' days no more, 
With vision clear, 
My mem'ry glides 
To ope her golden door. 

She sees thy face, 
Touch'd by the god who comes with icy breath, 
And all the grace 
Of youth is there 
For thou hast enter'd Death. 

Around thy brow. 
Fair with the life that never more shall wane, 
Are wreathed now 
The fragrant blooms 
That ease the sting of pain. 



TO-NIGHT. 37 

And thou dost stand 
In an abyss of light, whose glory rolls 
Through all the land, 
Sacred to peace 
And earth-lib'rated souls. 

Like to a sea 
The splendor breaks in waves around thy feet, 
While joyously 
There swell the notes 
Of music full and sweet. 

And well I know 
They breathe of cheer to those who conquer pain, 
And bravely go 
Adown the dark. 
The morning world to gain. 

To pass the tomb. 
And leave its ashes where that mountain high, 
Aglow with bloom, 
Uplifts its front 
Against the pearly sky. 



Look thou no more. 
But turn thy face away, O soul of mine, 
Nor ponder o'er 



Through longing tears 



The joys of life divine. 



38 DREAMS OF I^KVIORTALITY*. 

Thou fain wouldst press 
Onward to meet the light, and join the song, 
For weariness 
And loss are thine, 
And thou hast waited long. 

But to thy side 
There comes no friend to help thee up the height 
Thou must abide 
The gloom and cold 
For yet another night. 



FRIENDS UNSEEN. 39 



FRIENDS UNSEEN. 
(a flower medium's revery.) 

Encompass me thus, 

And shut out the dark, 

Form your electric circle bright ; 

Permeate this granite of flesh 

With the warmth the gladness of life divine, 

That the spirit within, 

The bird that pines, 

May spread its sick wings, 

Open its leaden eyes. 

And bask in the sunlio'ht. 

I know you, dear friends. 

Invisible guard. 

Fair are your faces, O women. 

And grand are your forms, O men. 

And sweet are your voices as those which rang 

Throuo'h Solomon's halls 

When dame and maid. 

Arrayed in rich garments, 

Blazing with jewels fine, 

Sat in their Eastern calm. 



40 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

What is it you bring ? 

Pansies wet with dew ? — 

Brighter than is the ray of morn 

Breaking with gradual glory 

Over the drowsy hills that stand in mist. 

Pansies? That is for thoughts, 

Thoughts of the souls, 

Purified, noble, 

Who have pass'd from the strife 

On to the blessed rest. 

What is it you bring ? 

Roses fresh and sweet? — 

Eicher than those that loll 

Over Venetian waters 

Where gondoliers dip the light oars 

And carol at evenins: their wild sweet sonsfs, 

Roses ? Emblems of silence, 

The silence strange 

Which walls out the music 

Of the rejoicing spheres. 

The pansy for thoughts — 
For silence, the rose — 
Sweet hieroglyphical blossoms 
Telling of countries and races. 
Of acres and acres of bloom 
Which I yet may behold, 



FRIENDS UNSEEN. 41 



When the white god, 
The god we call Death, 
Opens the narrow cage, 
And the lone bird is free ! 



I see you depart : 

Your crarlands of flow'rs 

Have melted in air, and your robes, 

Scintillant, lovely, trail outward 

O'er the black carpet of midnight ; 

And your spiritual lamps — 

Vapory balls 

That float through the gloom — 

Recede and diminish. 

Vanish, and are no more ! 

You have left with me 

A strength and a calm 

Born of belief in the future. 

Which wraps me about like a robe. 

Protecting from doubt and despair 

The spirit within me, — 

The bird that stirs. 

That plumes its faint wings. 

That sings of your pansies, 

Sitting above life's rose ! 



42 DREAMS OP IMMORTALITY. 



AN ECHO FROM PRE-EXISTENCE. 

Hush ! what can this be that haunts my mind,- 
A sound, an echo, the lightest sigh. 
Wafted down o'er the countless years. 
For aye gone by ! 

It steals at times to my dream at night, 
As zephyrs steal to the lily wet. 
Stirring it vaguely from leaf to leaf 
With dim regret. 

A sound elusive, and sweet, and strange. 
Beautiful, subtile and chaste as dew. 
Be it or fancy or mem'ry real. 

It thrills me through. 

Is it the note of a spirit song. 
The surge of waves on a phantom shore. 
Or the step of one now safe in heaven 
I priz'd of yore ? 

Or is it my name — a name I knew 
Ere the flesh enwrapp'd me in its fold. 
Sung through the spheres by a woman fond 
With hair of gold ? 



A FANCY. 43 



A FANCY. 

If by some fateful chance to-niglit 

We two should pass thro' death to make 

Our way towards some planet mild, 

And leaning in each other's arms, 

Float down the air, 

As seaweed floats adown a tide , 

To freedom, ease and all delight. 

Away from the old time. 

Always away from the discordant earth. 

Ever away, away from vile distrust. 

From weariness, from care, from hated toil, 

And in each other's eyes 

Behold the Paradise 

For which men yearn. 

And be unto each other all in all, — 

Should we not to the full be satisfied. 

And in that present read our past aright ? 



44 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE IMMORTAL. 

O bird of tender lay, 

Far in the woodland drear, 
Why sing through all the day 
When none are by to hear ? 

The night shall come amain 
To hush your strain. 

O flow'rs of beauty bright. 

Smiling in sunny dells, 
Think ye the autumn blight 
Idly its coming tells ? 

Decay shall bear your bloom 
To deck his tomb. 

Songs of the poet's heart. 

Lit with a purpose high, 
Think ye to form a part 
Of what can never die ? 

Time, in its onward flow, 
Shall quench your glow. 



THE IMMORTAL. 45 

Goodness, and love, and truth, 

Immortal from your birth, 
Wand'ring in fearless youth 
Throughout the troubled earth. 

Change on your deathless grace 
Shall leave no trace. 



46 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE GRASSES. 

Where are the grasses fair, the tender grasses 

fair, 
That were so frail and succulent and sweet, 
That bent their verdant tips 
Beneath the summer's lips 
And cast their wealth of dew 
Devoutly at her feet ? 

Beneath the scented dawn, the rosy, scented 

dawn. 
Lolling upon the zephyr's fairy tide, 
They saw the coming light 
Shine o'er the meadows bright 
To kiss the golden leaf 
And daisy open-eyed. 

They saw the golden bee, the golden-coated bee 
That dreams at ease upon the rose's breast, 



THE GRASSES. 47 

Come forth to add his tune 
To wanton airs of June, 
And greet the linnet brown 
Beside her grassy nest. 

The brooklet flowing by, forever flowing by, 
Sang through the willows of their fragile grace 
To mosses cool and dank 
Beneath the shady bank, 
To all the light and bloom 
And beauty of the place. 

And through the drowsy noon, the drowsy 

summer noon, 
They mutely hung the limpid waters o'er, 
And saw the cloud of snow 
Deepen the wave below. 
And read the symbol, wrought 
For mortals who deplore, 

And knew that to the heart, the ever-sighing 

heart. 
There smiles the image of a promise fond : 
" Above thine olden pain 
Green hopes shall bud again 
Beside the waters still 
Of that calm land beyond." 



48 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Where are the grasses fair, the tender grasses 

fair, 
That waved their tassels by yon icy rill, 
That heard the evening's sigh 
Eustle the alders by. 
While the long dreamy dark 
Crept slowly down the hill ? 



COLUMBUS. 49 



COLUMBUS. 

Through leagues of alien sea, with eager eyes 
And steady courage, didst thou keep thy way, 
Smiling on trembling fear as, day by day, 
There came to thee from out the solemn skies 
And the mysterious waves, sweet promises 
Of land be^^ond. And lo ! before thee lay 
A region whose delights in rich array 
Repaid thine anxious toil and enterprise. 
Again upon a sea unknown and wide 
Didst thou with cheer set forth. But if the 

glow 
Of a strange tropic shone across the tide 
Like to a beacon flame, we may not know : 
We can l)ut dream of faces glorified, 
Sunlight and gorgeous blooms and brooks aglow ! 



50 DKEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE ARTIST'S VISION. 

He look'd from out his prison pane, 
The artist bent with heavy 3^ears, 

And saw the muddy street, the rain. 
The smoking steeds and dingy piers, 

And ships preparing once again 

For the broad main. 

And none were by (the tears would start) 
To speak of that which once had been, 

When he, triumphant in his art. 

Was sought and reverenced of men. 

But now from all, with heavy heart, 
He stood apart. 

And pain was in his shrunken frame. 
And anguish wrung his spirit high, 

Though not for treasure lost with fame, 
Nor thankless friends' inconstancy. 

But that his once untarnish'd name 
Was flung to shame. 



THE artist's vision. 51 

Yet was he blest. For on his eyes 
As the day darken'd and the stars 

Sprinkled with light the holy skies, 
There rose athwart his prison-bars 

A woodland sweet with memories 
Of Pan the wise. 

He hears the sap whose subtile hand 
Upfurls the leaves and holds them high, 

Bright banners in a l)reezy land 

Flaunting their folds against the sky. 

And the round buds at spring's command 
With life expand, — 

Expand on all their piney stalks 

Where trails the moss with dew o'erhung, 
Like seaweed on projecting rocks 

Whose tendrils by the tide are swung, — 

Green floatao'e from time's wave which mocks 

The ocean shocks. 

And in the sunshine on a spray 

A wondrous bird sink's hio-h and low : 

"Away, awa}^ away, away, — 

Aye, there 'tis bright and roses Ixlow, 

And O ! and O ! and O ! and O ! 
And O ! and O ! " 



52 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

The artist lifts his noble head, 

His veins athrob with younger life, 

As with death's glories round her shed 
Comes she whom once he knew as wife, 

Crooning the song which comforted 
Their babe long dead. 

The light is on her glossy hair, 

A smile is in her eyes serene. 
As with the well-remember'd air 

She waves her hand — a very queen — 
While louder sings that bird in air 
Of resfions fair. 

'Tis but a vision that will wane 
Before the morrow opes its gate, 

A loving trick'ry of the brain 
To cheer a life made desolate. 

And prove that under sharpest pain 
Some joys remain ; — 

That he who holds in sacred trust 

His honor, manhood, — which are one, ■ 

However fortune prove unjust 
Can never wholly be undone, 

Not though he pine in prison dust 
And fare on crust. 



THE artist's vision. 53 

That Hope can sing through sorrow's day 
Of Southern lands we yet may know : 

" Away, away, away, away, — 

Aye, there 'tis bright and roses blow. 

And O ! and O ! and O ! and O ! 
And O ! and O ! " 



54 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



NIGHTFALL IN JUNE. 

The tide is going out : 
The sun, descending, throws a burnish'd track, 
Tremulous, rich and deep, along the waves 
Which toss on either side, and sing their song. 
And mar it not. Above, the clouds of gold 
Glide on the shore of sunset. Lo ! they pause 
And lift their wands, and brightly 'neath the 

stream 
Thousands of leagues they glitter — no, not they. 
Their souls enfranchis'd, — for they still float on. 
Regal, sustain'd, commanding, saints of God 
That came to bless the hour and go their way. 
Sweetly along the wood the darkling leaves 
Whisper their adoration ; while the dew 
Creeps drowsily adown the lily's edge 
To sink upon her bosom. And the birds 
Trill their o^ood-nio'ht and seek their homes and 

sleep. 
Be Thou, O Spirit of that deep Beyond, — 
That tranquil sea down which, in days to come, 



NIGHTFALL IN JUNE. 55 

Our barks shall glide, — feeling no more the 

stress 
Of storm and reef, but, merging into calm, 
And light, and joy, and peace that is of Thee, 
Thee and Thee only, who art all our good, — 
Be Thou the watcher o'er this night of June. 
And as the bud bends on her fragile stalk 
Trustful and brave, though round her falls the 

gloom. 
And the wind rises, so may we, who need. 
Feel that Thy strength is o'er us till the dawn 
Opens its golden gates, and all is well. 



56 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE SOUNDS OF NIGHT. 

The curtain stirs its folds and seems to thrill 
Expectantly, while o'er 

The honeysuckle's web the whispering breeze 
Creeps chilly, weaving on the chamber floor 
A spray of lace-like shadow evermore. 

The poplar, starting fitfully from sleep, 
Shakes out its leaves, but soon 
Sinks into dewy slumber with a sigh. 
Content that not a twig athrob with June 
Will miss the sunlight of to-morrow's noon. 

In the wide marsh, smoking with vapor gray, 
Where the flag bends its blade, 
The bur-r-r and gurgle of the frog is heard. 
While the lone whippoorwill in thorny glade 
Monotonously wakes the pensive shade. 



THE SOUNDS OF NIGHT. 57 

All sounds are sweetly blent, as though the 

night, 
Tuning the world's harsh lyre. 
Had ris^hted its lax cords and strove to wake 
The holy note which trembled from its wire 
To win the hearts of Eden to aspire. 

Sounds, many sounds arise, while through the 

gloom 
We wait for slumber dear ; 
But never — never — never as of yore 
Can we with rapture sweet the music hear 
Of footsteps that have sought the dreamless 

sphere. 

Nor though we listen, can we hear the flow 
Of Death's unmeasur'd sea. 
Whose mighty tide at last shall flood the world, 
Drowning all discords with its symphony, 
And washing all souls white, O Dawn, for thee I 



58 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



STRIKE THOU THE HARP. 

Strike thou the harp, O Bard, 
And lift thy voice on high, 

And sing to doubting man 
Of things that never die, 

That live and have their day 
When worlds decay. 

Sing in thy sweetest strain, 
And help his heart rejoice, 

For he has weary grown 
With longing for a voice 

To teach him what is pure 
And shall endure. 

The earth to thee is fair : 

For lo ! thine eyes are clear, 

Thou standest on the heights 
And seest far and near. 

Whilst he, l)enighted, strays 
Through noisome ways. 



STRIKE THOU THE HARP. 59 

He recks not of the dawn 

That brightens all thy sky, 
Nor sees the gorgeous hues 

That on dead roses lie, 
Nor notes the eagle soar 

Whose life is o'er. 

And Joy to him is gone 

When age comes on apace, 
While o'er thy soul is shed 

Forevermore her grace, — 
Thou of the gods the last 

That earthward pass'd ! 

Strike then the harp, O Bard, 

And sing of things to be. 
When Truth shall win at last 

A bloodless victory, • 

And Wrong shall lose its sway 

And pass away. 

And in thy deathless sons' 

Tell how the sons of men 
Shall reap a harvest rich 

That waves beyond his ken. 
And bind its golden sheaves 

On future eves, 



60 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Thou hast the sage's hope, 
The seer's divinest sight, 

And knowest how this dark 
But leads to perfect light ; 

That life evolves from death 
Time's wand beneath. 

That, in the atom frail. 
Trodden by careless feet. 

There sleeps, unborn, a world 
For coming years to greet ; 

That from such clay is wrought 
Sublimest thought. 

That strength — primordial — lurks 
Within each tiny grain. 

Which shall upheave the hills 
And hold a giant main. 

And from the dust evoke 
A grove of oak ; — 

And thrill in liquid fire. 
Along the pansy's arm. 

To turn its ruddy face 
Up to the sunlight warm, 

And all its leaves uphold 
Through dark and cold. 



STRIKE THOU THE HARP. 61 

Yea, this and more, O Bard, 
Thou viewest from thy height. 

See that to man is taught 
The lofty creed aright, 

That he may hope and wait 
When dark his fate. 

Teach him that naught shall die 

Save only sin and pain ; 
That from the weak and mean 

To godhood we attain ; 
That love is but to prove 

A higher Love. 



62 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE CORONATION OF THE HOLY MOTHER. 

The glorious Virgin Mary was with great jubilee aud exultation 
of the whole court of Heaven, and particular glory of all the saints, 
cro'5\aied by her Son with the brightest diadem of glory. — Rosary 
OF THE Blessed Vikgin. 

The angels hush'd their harps of gold, 

And stilled the songs they lov'd to sing, 
And o'er its sands the crystal stream 

With softer note went murmuring ; 
While through the portals open wide, 

With such a rapture on her face 
As added lustre to the place. 

Came Mary to the Crucified. 

She knelt amid that breathless host, 

The mother, beautiful as day. 
And on her brows was set with care 

The circlet of her majesty. 
And then the Queen of Angels strong. 

While heaven with paeans rang anew, 
Stood upright by the Christ, and drew 

His hand in hers to clasp it long. 



THE CORONATION OF THE HOLY MOTHER. 63 

For though He was the King of kings, 

In whom all strength and glory lay, 
And though He was the God of Saints, 

Who worshipp'd Him unceasingly. 
She heeded not His honors won 

Through toil and awful sacrifice. 
But read His fiice with loving eyes. 

And thought this thought alone : " My Son ! " 



64 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



MARY, MOTHER OF OUR GOD. 

Mary, mother of our God, 

Let thy clear feet press this gloom, 

And thy presence fill the place. 
And thy hand reach out for mine. 
Comforting with touch divine, 

Till I dream I see thy face. 

Always in the glory land 

With the splendor on thy brows, 

Dwellest those by Him, the wise, 
Who endur'd the agony 
Felt by frail humanity 

Seeking a lost paradise. 

Mother, undefiled and just. 
How thy love with steady beam 

Pierces through the dusk of time, 
While the cross uplifts its white 
Glowing, moonlike, through the night, 

With a radiance sublime. 



MARY, MOTHER OF OUR GOD. 65 

Never sorrow probes the heart 
But thy smile can healing bring ; 

Never sin, though leprous vile, 
Gives defilement to the soul. 
But thy prayers can make us whole 

Through the grace of sufiering. 

Pray for us * till death shall give 
Kespite to the bleeding feet, 

Which on thorny ways have trod ; 
Yea, be thou the one to plead 
With that Love who meets our need, 

Mary, mother of our God ! 



* Holy Mary, pray for us, now antl at the hour of our death. — 

ROSAKY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 



66 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



THE LEGEND OF THE VIOLETS. 

Passing through a pleasant mead, 
Where a brook cut through the green, 
Like a sheet of silver spread 

In a glory-lighted place, 
Once a Spirit saw a weed 
Sadly o'er the water lean, 
Gazing at the sunset red 

Mirror'd on its laughing face. 

And he listened where he stood. 
Smiling in a tender way 
As its plaintive voice arose 

O'er the gurgle of the wave : 
'*! was born for solitude. 
And the sorrow of decay. 
While thy current townward flows, 

And its waves a beauty have. 



THE LEGEND OF THE VIOLETS. 67 

" All about me is the sound 
Of the swelling buds that hold 
Gorgeous tints that soon will vie 

With the colors of the west ; 
But in me no grace is found 
Which shall fragrantly unfold, 
And unknown of joy am I, 

While my sister herbs are blest ! " 

Then the Spirit spoke and said : 
"Lady of our Lord, I plead 
That thou grant one other gift 

To the margin of this mere ; 
Let thy holy dew be shed 
On this lone neglected weed, 
Till a bloom its stem uplift 

With the brightest of the year." 

And the little M^eed was still, 
All its dusky leaves aglow 
With the gem-light of the dew. 

And the star-ray of the skies ; 
And our Mary sought the rill 
Where the rushes rustle low. 
There to make the violet blue. 

Like that Spirit's loving eyes. 



68 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Still she knelt in eager plight, 
Working fast and silently, 
When the morning rung its bells, 

Waking all the cloister wood. 
And the violet frail and white 
Is unpainted to this day ; 
But a sweet tradition tells 

How she kiss'd, and thought it good ; 

Saying that the white should be 
Emblematic of the dress 
Which the Spirit wore that hour 

When he souo'ht the meadow low. 
Then she rose in majesty, 
And her lino^erinof caress 
Is the odor which the flow'r 

Yields to all the winds that blow. 



ON THE LAKE. 69 



ON THE LAKE. 
YiOLA AND Eric. 

VIOLA. 

So softly do we enter, my belov'd, 

This garden of the lilies, that the oar 

Scarce stirs yon pointed buds, though from the 

cups 
Of the full blossoms drips a perfume fine 
To scent the water, while the hidden stalks 
Lift safe and high alcove the tide their thick 
And ample leaves. 

ERIC. 

As a strong soul sustains 
Its hope above life's sorrows. 

But behold 
How the warm sunset spreads its gorgeous sheen 
Along the low horizon, while the trees 
Surge in the dusty fire, and seem to reel 
Under the awful splendor, as, me thinks, 



70 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

Did Dante when he stood with Beatrice 
And look'd on Paradise. It brino-s to mind 
Those lines in the " Excursion " — 



» VIOLA. 

Ha ! that bird — 
A night-hawk, was it? How his sturdy wings 
Whirr'd as he sped from sight ! But pardon, 

dear : 
You spoke of Wordsworth — 



ERIC. 

Or a work of his 
Which Elia said was "ill put up in boards," 
And for his spleen TvTemesis sent Carlyle 
A roaring lion, who made game, we'll say, 
Of the defenceless Lamb. 



VIOLA. 

You roam afield ; 
Besides, my sympathy is with the clerk, 
Wlio certainly was not below the salt 
At the wit's table. As for him who drank 
So greedily of gall, Dean Swift himself 
Could not have been more savage. Let him pass. 



ON THE LAKE. 71 

ERIC. 

Well said ! His stormy spirit ill accords 
With this calm hour, which seems to quote for 

me : 
" Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul." 

VIOLA. 

And it says also, with an equal grace : 

" The holy time is quiet as a nun 

Breathless with adoration ; " for this thought 

Of the same poet is applicable 

To the fields southward, where the daisies stand 

With the tall buttercups, as if their souls. 

Piercing through yonder clouds, had caught a 

glimpse 
Of flow'rs immortal, and were petrified 

At their own grossness. 

Long ago I read, 
I know not where, that were the race of men, 
By some strange freak of nature, suddenly 
To turn to stone, — man, woman, youth and 

babe, 
Each in the garb and with the self-same looks 
They wore when the doom fell — 

ERIC. 



This world would be 



A Vatican worth visiting ! 



72 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

VIOLA. 

It would. 
And somehow this was why I thought of flow'rs 
Changed into rock. How lovely they would 

look, 
Tinted and delicate ! — each gauzy vein 
Traced in a substance that would lauo^h at blisfht 
And scorn the tempest, keeping without change 
Their pristine beauty, that the eyes of those 
Who shall come after us in ages hence 
Might study as we study the white stars 
Which lit the years forgotten. 

ERIC. 

Fi, my dear ! 
You jest with fact, as bards are wont to do, 
And show your woman's hate of time which steals 
Not only youth and love, but slowly gnaws 
The granite into sand, — a hurricane 
Would reap your daisies though the stems were 

made 
Of adamant, — and sweeps from the vast heavens 
A host of constellations. Dost thou think 
That anything shall watch the ages out. 
Save Deatli and Mutability ? 



VIOLA. 

I do. 



ON THE LAKE. 73 

I think these lilies here, that droop their heads 
As though your blasphemous and gloomy doubts 
Were blight itself breathing among these leaves, 
Will keep from death an essence which again 
Shall be imprisoned in a lily-seed 
And germinate, lift leaf and dewy bud 
And golden-hearted blossom to a sun 
Brighter, perhaps, than ours. I hold that love 
Will sow eternity with fairer blooms 
Than blew in Eden. For I think that too 
Will live forever : " watch the ages out." 

ERIC. 

Nonsense ! 
You are a woman, and we know 
That women are born blind, which proves, I 

think, 
That Cupid is their idol, who will have 
No gods before him. I, who love you well, 
And drink from the blue chalice of your eyes 
My soul's elixir, would not have you think 
That this dear love of ours which we esteem 
Most precious, aye, essential to the weal 
Of our existence, can outlast the wear 
Of the bleak years which roll their tumbrils 

rude 
Along the weary stones that pave the path 
Of progress : tumbrils which convey poor souls 



74 DREAMS OP IMMORTALITY. 

To kiss experience, time's guillotine. 
I would not have you trick your honest heart 
With the fool's fancy that we shall retain 
Beyond this life of ours a thing so frail, 
So like the perfume of a fleeting flow'r, 
Which, when the blossom withers, wanders — 
where ? 

VIOLA. 

Eric, I like it not, this tune of yours 
Which you are pleased to match to ev'ry song 
Of hope and promise blessed which the soul 
Sings for our cheering. Why, it augurs ill. 
This talk of change in one who swore of late 
To yield me his aflection — 

EKIC. 

As I do : 
I love you fully, and am satisfied. 
Believing I am fully lov'd in turn ; 
And yet, if it be true, as we are told 
By dreamers of the Robert Browning type, 
Who rant of transmigration, that we shed, 
As the snake sheds his skin, the human flesh 
And don it at our pleasure, — living here 
As Mr. A., and there as Mr. B., 
And elsewhere in a higher plane, perhaps, 
As some one greater, — yes, if this be true, 



ON THE LAKE. 75 

I cannot think that Ariadne's self, 
However zealous, could conduct the thread 
Of stronger love than ours through such a 

strange. 
Perplexing labyrinth of destiny. 



VIOLA. 

Let us not talk of it. My heart recoils 
And shudders like a weak and hunted thing 
Which do2:s have driven onward to the brink 
Of the wild precipice. I cannot look 
Into a depth so dreadful. O my love, 
I seem to hear the rushing of that flood 
Of life eternal, — life w^ithout your smile, — 
And near us are the bloody hounds of death 
To tear you from me. 

ERIC. 

Ha ! you vision well , 
For death, and time, and the harsh world which 

brawls 
For gold and pow'r, are all at war with love. 
Yet let us, while we may, enjoy her feast. 
Lift her red gol)let, wreath'd with myrtle green, 
And drain it to the lees. Perchnce some day a 
When, having pass'd through many lives, and 

gain'd 



76 DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

One that is near to godhood, — having drawn 
From each brief life its hoard of luscious love, 
As the bee sucks from out the llow'r its store 
Of honey juices, -=- 1, alone, may sit, 
Droning to golden beads the rosary 
Of high affection. Should I touch at length 
One brighter and more sacred than the rest, 
Feelino; a shock electric cut its course 
Into my heart astonish'd, I shall know 
'Tis not the sweet " our Father," nor the fond 
" Hail Mary," ])ut my lips will form the words 
" Viola, thou wert love, the all-in-all ! " 
And then — and then, my dearest, I shall muse 
On this bright eve when '^ glorious mysteries " 
Were writ in characters of pink and gold, 
Crimson and blue and purple, on the scroll 
Of the metallic sky. 

VIOLA. 

And then ? 

ERIC. 

And then 
With eager joy I shall recall a maid 
Trailins: from a canoe a listless hand 
Which scarcely feels the lily or the slush 
Of the bright current, so intent is she 
With gazing on a face. 



ON THE LAKE. 77 

VIOLA. 

I said last night 
That face was noble. More, 'tis beautiful ; 
And though corruption claim it, and the things, 
We dream of in this night-time we term life 
Fulfil themselves hereafter, I shall keep 
That face, that only, in my heart of hearts. 
Love if you will the women who shall smile 
And lean on you in future : but for me, 
One love, a love like thine, is joy enough 
To bless me for all time. 

Hark ! from the shore 
My brother calls. 'Tis growing late. The light 
Has faded from the hilltops, and our boat 
Rocks on the wind as rocks the wave. We land. 
How strong your arms are ! Kiss me. Let us 
haste ! 



I. 

tup: reapers. 

Sitting beside my hearth-stone's bending flame, 
With winter on the hills, and winds astir 
In the shorn maple and the faded fir, 

I hear a reaper call a maiden's name ; 

And she, responding, leaves a riotous game, 
And tossing on her skirt's uplifted fold 
A rustling sheaf aglow vrith ripest gold. 

Bears him gay company to whence they came. 

Her bare feet press the stones with careless tread, 
Her round cheek, luscious in its dewy blush. 
Glows richer in the sunset's lingering flush ; 

And he, the youth, awkward and dumb and meek, 
Lifts up shy eyes of longing, and would speak, 
But fails, and offers her a flow'r instead. 



THE SAND STORM. 79 



II. 

THE SAND STORM. 

Fierce noontide quivers on a reach of sand, 
Across whose white, aweary and with pain, 
Pants a black motion, while a hurricane. 
Far off, drives forward, as waves drive to land, 
Churning, upheaving, roaring in a grand 
Slaughter of calm ; while the long caravan 
Breaks as fleets break in storm, and beast and 

man 
Struggle like drowning things who view a strand. 
The hot dry storm darkens the scorching glare, 
And whirls in wrath along the endless waste, 
And one huge camel which for long hath pac'd 
The desert ways, uplifts, as in despair, 
His gaunt worn neck high in the stifling air, 
And sinks — and from the tumult is efiaced ! 



80 rS OTHZK LA>"D5. 



m. 

EGYPT. 

Eg^'pt. thou aged siift'rer, like to Lear, 
Who, standing *mid thy p^-ramids of stone. 
Hast seen the wi-eck of many a noble year, 
And systems fail, and kingdoms overthrown : 
Around thine ears the generations hum, — 
Those puny flies that live but for a day. 
And feel no orief that all thv iov is dumb, 
Thy wisdom lost, thy gi*andeur passed away. 
Yet oft for thee the Xile attunes its voice, 
To sins: of deeds which men remember not. 
The desert sand makes thy lone heart rejoice 
With legends bright no dark of time can blot : 
And through thy dreams there moves a royal 

train, 
And Cleopatra smiles and drinks her pearls 

asrain. 



TEOPIC REEDS. 81 



IV. 
TROPIC REEDS. 

The sun comes up above the tropic s^lade. 
Comes up with lire of gold and flame of rose, 
Its splendor broadening till the reeds disclose 

Beneath the glassy stream long ranks of shade. 

Brown, delicate and beautiful they stand, 

Etch'd on the glave, their blades ^vith dew 

empearled, 
And silence softly o er their happy world 

Rests with a smile benign her soothing hand. 

Patient and moveless as a shape in stone, 
A heron, standing in the sapphire stream, 
Waits for the morning to complete its dream, 

Waits, listening, intent, with head upthrown. 

But never thro' the reeds shall Pan essay 
The dulcet music of his flute to pour. 
To break the silence as in days of yore : 

Vainly she listens, facing the red da v. 



82 IN OTHER LANDS. 



V. 

MY CASTLE. 

Over the vsea is a castle fair, 
Builded by me in a kingdom rare ; 
Its towers of gold are bright on high, 
Its flags unfold to an azure sky. 
There summer smiles on her dearest days, 
And songsters warble their fondest lays ; 
Never by dreamer's eye was seen 
Fairer castle than mine, I ween. 

Its beauty ])eams thro' the dusk of night, 
Its glory gleams in the morning light ; 
The sea rolls by with joyous song, 
While breezes sio^li its bowers amonp' : 
And odors swept from the rose's charm 
Breathe out their lives on the golden calm. 
Blow, ye blooms, in that blessed clime. 
Deathless, radiant through all time. 



MY CASTLE. §3 

Over the hills when the sun is low, 
Over the rills as they dancino- flow, 
The clouds delay on their crimson track, 
While beauteous day looks fondly back. 
"Lo ! all is well with the castle grand," 
Chimes out a bell thro' the charmed land, 
Chimes and swings in its dome of snow. 
Tinged with the rose of the western glow. 

The years go by with their storm and shine, 
But never an eye, save only mine, 
Hath seen the light on that castle fall. 
Or mark'd the height of its ivied wall. 
The hurrying hosts of life afar 
Come never that kingdom's prize to mar ; 
Safe it stands in a land unknown, 
Sacred, beautiful, all my own. 

Over the sea to the castle fair, 
Builded by me in a region rare. 
My hope doth turn thro' the weary years, 
Vanquish'd never by griefs and fears ; 
There shine the jewels of price untold 

That never tarnish and ne'er grow old 

Fancy, child of the air and light. 
Ever thy dreams are to mortals bright ! 



^ita|«ctl0ii< 



Whither tendeth thi'ough the dark of time aud the roar of life's 
endeavor the streams of Joy and Love? Go tliou to the sunless 
Sea of Change, and mark through thy weeping how silently they sweep 
into its tide, to mingle and be lost forevermoi'e. 



MY PAST. 

"I have the memory of a happy past that can never be taken from 



me. 



Circled with calm, and lit with richest sheen, 
Thou liest, O my Italy ! I trace 
Thy limpid streams threading with finest grace 
The dreamy valleys through ; thy slopes of green, 
Fields, meadows, hills, and skies that o'er them 

lean. 
Sweet are thy breezy shores, and low the lays 
Of ocean waves drifting beneath the haze 
Which haunts for evermore thy realm serene. 
Thou art my Paradise, where yet abide 
Youth, Hope and Love : in thee, with yearning 

high — 
Uplifting, to a dawn which never breaks, 



MY PAST. 85 

Her beautiful proud face — is Constancy ; 
And oft she sings of things that never die, 
And many an echo clear her music wakes. 

And I, who tread life's hilltop sloping low 
To wintry death, look on thee thro' my tears, 
And bless thee Aveeping ; for thro' all the years 
That wait anigh, Avhether with weal or woe 
My cup of fate fills to the overflow, 
Thou wilt be mine — and thus I quell my fears ; 
And daily, hourly, on my sight appears 
Thy charm more lovely while I onward go. 
No change can dim thy glory : long the dew 
Shall gild the rose, the leaf its glow retain, 
The birds sing on, and those whom once I knew. 
Move through thy groves ideal, nor in vain 
Call in familiar tones to wake anew 
From mem'ry's airy lyre the fondest strain. 



86 RETROSPECTION. 



THE BROKEN LUTE. 

Dost dream, dear Lute, of days that are no more 

Of life a part. 
When tender hands thy music did outpour, 
And tender voices rose thy numbers o'er? 

Then thou art mute indeed — 

Like to my tuneless heart. 

Dost feel that e'er true love's divinest song, 

Throbbing with fire. 
Can sweep again thy silent chords among, 
Can wake the bliss that thrill'd thy being long ? 

Then thou art old indeed — 

Like to this heart's desire. 

O Lute ! my Lute ! upon thy form I see, 

Thro' dust and stain, 
A record sad of things no more to be, 
Of voices lost and rarest minstrelsy. 

Thus dost thou symbol life. 

When joy gives room to pain. 



DAYS DEPARTED. 87 



DAYS DEPARTED. 

" I recognize you, O smiling places, where I remember that joy- 
fully I si)ent the quiet days of my former youth. Dear places, I do 
find you, but those days I find no more." 

Aye, blessed scenes of former years, 

I view }'e as in hours of yore, 
And note the gleam on field and stream, 

The glory on the rugged shore, 
The leaves that tremble overhead, 
The mossy bank whereon I tread, — 

But ah ! those days I find no more . 

Methinks yon sea-gull, soaring free 
Above the tossing foam, must know 

With what a sigh I cast my eye 

To where the proud ships outward go ; 

With what a thrill of nameless pain 

I watch his flight with sad refrain : 
" So fled the days I find no more ! " 



88 RETROSPECTION. 

Methinks the sunset's golden tide 
That ebbs adown the glowing west, 

Must mark how strange, how full of change, 
Have been my days since I was blest ; 

Since last with hope I trod the strand 

And smiled to feel that tender hand 
Which now, O days, I find no more ! 

The poplars toss their silver leaves, 
The sparrows chirp upon the spray. 

The groves repeat their music sweet, 
And thus it ^\^as in childhood gay ; 

But ah ! the dreams so wild and bright 

Have changed to gray like sunset's light, 
And those lov'd days I find no more. 



THE OLD GARDEN. 89 



THE OLD GARDEN. 

I dream of a o-arden brio'ht 

Bv a cottao'e old and 2:ray, 
Where the shadows came at night 

And the golden sun by day ; 
Where the locusts bent to the summer wind, 
The breezy wind, the joyous wind. 

That swept from the fields of clover. 

I dream of the lily's grace, 

And pinks in their crimson vest. 

Of the daisy's fairy face 

And th' rose in her glory dress'd ; 

Of the happy bees that liumm'd their lay, 

Their idle lay, their dreamful lay. 
To the lio:ht — the listless rover. 

And the hollyhock was there 

With its cups of gorgeous hue, 
And the pansy fresh and fair 

Aglow with the morning dew : 



90 RETROSPECTION. 

And the robin sang to his cheery mate, 
His doting mate, his matron mate, 
A sons of the o-racious Giver. 

And over the cottage eaves, 

Thro' the season sweet and calm. 

The woodbine w^ove with mystic leaves 
A verdurous tangled charm ; 

And above, the clouds went idling on, 

Went drifting on, went sailing on, 
Like sw^ans on an azure river. 

My playmate lov'd the spell 

Of that garden quaint and old, — 

Her smiles, as of yore, I tell, 
And the curls of wavy gold, — 

And hand in hand thro' the radiant bloom, 

The scented bloom, the luscious bloom, 
We sought for our latest treasure. 

Aye, the sunbeams waver yet 
O'er the fields of green and red. 

But my darling's sun is set. 

And my garden's bloom is dead ; 

And, 'stead of the song of the olden days, 

The careless days, the mirthful days, 
I list to a mournful measure. 



MY FLOWER. 91 



MY FLOWER. 

Once upon a time, when I was young, 
And the earth was brighter in its bloom, 
And the roses sweeter in perfume, 

Walking thro' the wood one morning fair, 

I espied a flower of beauty rare. 

All alone beside the rock it grew, 
And above it in the sunny light 
Stood a pine tree, goodly to the sight ; 
So beneath its spreading boughs I sat. 
And resign'd my thoughts to this and that. 

In the bay, aglow with yellow sun, 
All the patient ships at anchor lay, 
And the waters kiss'd them in their play, 
Bath'd the rocks that slept upon the shore. 
And their mystic rhymes repeated o'er. 

Silver clouds above the purple hills. 

Bending earthward with a stately grace, 
Breath'd their benediction o'er the place. 

Never waters whisper'd deeper lore. 

Or diviner glories lit the shore. 



92 RETROSPECTION. 

Ah, my Heart ! you keep the picture dear, 
And arising on my inner sight 
I behold it through my tears to-night. 
Age and care may bring us griefs untold, 
But no change can mar the joys of old. 

While I ponder'd in a dreamy mood, 

Lo ! the west wind mo v'd the branches green, 
Happy branches in the summer sheen. 
And my flower, with motion soft and slow, 
Wav'd its shadow on the rock below. 

Long ago its glory fell to dust ; 

But I think that, far from mortal eyes. 

In the blessed clime of Paradise, 
I shall see its spirit, strange and fair. 
As it smiled upon the granite there. 

I shall know it by its leaves of light. 
By its tenderness and odor sweet. 
By its beauty, wondrous and complete ; 
And 'twill whisper how the waters sung 
Once upon a time, when I was young. 



A LOST SUMMER. 93 



A LOST SUMMER. 

I listen through the falling of the rain, 

And sighing leaves that eddy round the door, 

And almost think I hear thy voice again 

And see thine eyes. 
And greet their smile once more : 
But no, the flow'rs are dead, 
Naught can their bloom restore. 

The clock ticks on to strike our meeting hour ; 
Th' expectant hush steals o'er my longing heart, 
And back again, with all their olden pow'r. 

Come hope, and faith. 
And joy, of love a part : 
But ah ! the birds are fled, 
Hush'd is their minstrel art. 

I press my head against the darkened glass, 
And dream thy step draws near the portal's vine, 
That tendrils cling, caressing, as you pass, 
To touch the door, 



94 RETROSPECTION. 

To reach your hands for mine : 
Ah me ! that vine is bare, 
Its leaves nor dance nor shine. 

"Dear love, the past is ours," so sings a voice ; 
"No change nor blight shall ever reach that shore ; 
Sweet are the streams that make its vales rejoice, 

Fair is the clime 
And blest forevermore : 
Be strong. Arise and go. 
Safe are the dreams of yore." 



THROUGH THE STORM. 95 



THROUGH THE STORM. 

What is that at the door, 
While the wind shrills high 
And the rain drives by, 

And waves on the shingles pour? 

The shutters creak and strain, 

And I seem to feel 

The old cottage reel. 
As a ship reels on the main. 

Is it a sea-gull gray 

That taps at the sill 

With his horny bill, 
His fierce wings dripping with spray? 

What doth he bring to me 

In his knotted claw, 

From the cruel maw 
Of the monster wreck-fed sea? 



9 6 RETROSPECTION . 

Is it but worthless sand ? 
Or — oh, bitter thought 
With an an^iuish frauo'ht ! — 

A rins: from a dead man's hand ? 

Saw he a form emerge 
From the glassy cave 
Of a swinging wave, 

To rest a space on its verge, — 

Ere down the liquid steep, 
Agleam with the light 
Of a moonbeam bright, 

It sped to the yawning deep, — 

While shapes of uncouth guise 
Clutch'd at the hair, 
And the forehead fair, 

And the dreamy, sightless eyes ? 

Nay, it is not a bird 

Which hath brought to me 
From the crashing sea 

A gem and a farewell word. 

The sound has sought the pane, 

And I dimly trace 

A delicate face 
Adrip, like a flow'r, with rain. 



THROUGH THE STORM. 97 

Still — as a statue white — 

While an inward glow 

Lights a brow I know, 
It stands in a niche of night. 

Beautiful, lift thy head, 

And dispel this trance 

With thy mournful glance, 
Till my heart is quieted. 

But hark ! the spectral blast 

Calls thee o'er the wave 

To thy empty grave — 
Go, ghost of a joy long past ! 



98 RETROSPECTION. 



LEAVITT'S LANE. 

In Leavitt's lane the dews are bright, 
And common flowers are blowing, 
While on its course, by many a curve, 

The dusky brook goes flowing. 
As all the day the summer winds 

Play on the reach of grass — 
A verdant lake across whose tide 
The lights and shadows pass, 
To thi-ow 
Gold on the buttercups. 
And on the daisies snow. 

There by the hour the idle cloud. 

Large, soft and silver- white. 
Hangs pois'd above the cottage quaint. 

Its crest aglow with light ; 
The sunbeams cross in silent play 

Their sabres by the stream, 
And drowsily the wave trends on 
As in a blissful dream, 
To be 
Drawn slowly from its calm 
Into the turbid sea. 



leavitt's lane. 



99 



A hilltop lifts its I^reezy slope 

That little brook anear, 
And there the spruce and maple tall 

Stand upright, tier on tier. 
They bend their tops and wave their wands, 

And sing a happy song, 
And slowly, slowly all the while, 

The current moves alono- 



To orain 



That strength of larger life 
Known only to the main. 

Above, but hidden by the trees, 

Safe, silent and alone. 
The dead sleep on, nor heed the sun 

Smiting the shafts of stone ; 
Sleep on while sighs the pleasant wind 

And blooms their breath outpour. 
And seaward speeds the eager stream, 
Rejoicing evermore. 

Nor deems 
That progress is but pain, 
Which puts an end to dreams. 

In Leavitt's lane with blithesome steps. 

And laugh outringing wild. 
There frolick'd in the days gone by 

A dark-eyed radiant child, 



100 RETROSPECTION. 

Plucking the daisy from its stem, 

The lily from its stalk, 
While in its bed, with gurgling sound, 
The current seem'd to talk. 
And say, 
"Youth is but brief, dear girl. 
Laugh on while yet you may." 

She knew where, shaggy and uncouth. 

The robbins' nest was hung. 
And how the minnows by the dam 

Their finny rudders swung ; 
Her glancing feet, with soft bare tread, 

Dabbled the sunlight's gold 
Which glisten'd on the rocking wave 
With motion manifold. 
AndO, 
The brook swept on and on 
With swift and steady flow. 

The roof-tree in the field remains, 

Elm-shaded as of yore ; 
But womanhood has won the child. 

And death has sought that door ; 
And all is changed and sadder grown. 

Save only Nature's face ; 
For still the brook flows on and on 

With all its old-time grace, 



leavitt's lane. 101 

And fain 
Would sing the song of cheer 
For aye by Leavitt's lane. 



102 RETROSPECTION. 



AFTERNOON IN THE COUNTRY. 

Long sloping fields, where silken grass 

Waves with the dandelions fresh, 
And orchard boughs of pink and snow 

Which shake the odors from their mesh, 
As the wind sways them to and fro, 
And up and down. 
And fast and slow. 

A shallow stream as blue as steel 

Flashes its sabre in the sun, 
Keen and cool, and broad and bare. 

And the sharp rushes which uprun 
Their needles in the yielding air, 
Nor heed the wave. 
Nor note the glare. 

And hills that lift their purple globes 

(Thro' Avhich we see the shapes of trees) 
Above the soft submerging haze, 

And birds that fling their melodies 
Along the drowsy orcliard ways 
In notes of joy 
And notes of praise. 



AFTERNOON IN THE COUNTRY. 103 

A cottage near whose open door 

The lilacs wave their dingy green, 
While the rank woodbine pours its shade, 

The diamond- trellis prop between. 
To fall in lace across the braid 
Of a low-brow'd 
And dreamy maid. 

A spacious barn with ample eaves, 

Where round and round the swallows skim. 
And the kine waiting by the bars, 

Their large moist eyes with peace abrim, 
And clouds that seek the hidden stars 
Along the low 
Horizon's rim. 

An idler on his shoulder broad 

Steadies a child in riotous play. 
His handsome face upturn'd, as down 
The grassy path he makes his way, 
The gold curls blending with the brown, 
Their faces fresh 
As is the day. 

A feeble crone who journeys on 
Along the highway's dust and heat, 

Pauses awhile with pensive air 

To view the picture still and sweet : 



104 RETROSPECTION. 

"A girl," she sighs, "with sun-fleck'd hair, 
Where droop the blooms 
Like purple wheat. 

" Ah me, 'twas thus in youth I sat, 
As comely and as gayly dress'd. 
To watch for one whose loving arms 

With rapture drew me to his breast ; 
And that fair child with all his charms 
Is like, so like. 
Our first and best ! 

" And he who bears him lightly on, 

As only the warm-hearted can. 
Whose limbs are strong and grandly wrought 

By kindly nature's noblest plan, 
Is like to one who cheer'd my lot — 
My man, my man. 
My dear old man ! " 



SACRIFICED TO MOLOCH. 105 



SACRIFICED TO MOLOCH. 

She glides adown her spacious halls, 
A woman calm and proud and cold, 
And haughty is the silken sweep 

Of her costly dress, 

Whose loveliness 
Vies with the glory of the deep. 

And on her gems the lamplight glints. 
And smites their beauty into flame, 
And none accuse her of a wrong. 

As onward she 

In majesty 
Moves slowly through the votive throng. 

And he is there whose gold hath bought 
The freedom of her girlhood's day. 
Whose hand hath led her forth to ease, 

And in whose eyes 

She wears the guise 
Of calm content his love to please. 



106 RETROSPECTION. 

And proudly looks on all uround, 

This lady of the royjil air, 

And " She is blest ! " they whis[)er low, 

" And none can say 

She cast away 
For naught her heart and beauty's glo^r." 

And on her gems the lamplight falls. 
And in her eyes the smile is seen, — 
Like sunlight o'er a sabre cast, — 

Nor do they see 

How lonoino^lv 
Her thoughts turn backward to the past, - 

To note a cottage where the vine 
Creeps richly round the sunny roof, 
And watch the sins^ino^ trees that lift 

Their branches hioh 

Against the sky 
AYhile clouds above them whitely drift ; — 

To see the hollyhock and mint. 
The sun aslant the drooping leaves, 
The lily blowing as of yore, 

The garden gate 

Where, soon or late, 
A form shall pass to gain the door. 



SACRIFICED TO MOLOCH. 107 

"Aye, thou wert poor and I was proud, 

And now — 'tis well — why should I grieve ? — 

I have my wealth, and thou — hast art : 

But could I be 

Again with thee. 
No fate should rend our lives apart." 



108 RETROSPECTION . 



IN A BALL-ROOM. 



I. 



Fancy, meandering thro' the range of thought, 
Sees a vast throng of dancers moving down 
A marble hall with countless lilies strown, 
And bright with hangings all with gold en- 
wrought, 
While the light glitters on a statue brought 
From distant Rome, — a Venus holding high. 
With uprais'd face, and arm curv'd daintily. 
Her tlow'r of Love, as if a charm she sought. 
She stands with naked breast whose senseless 

stone 
Is all athrob with life, so fair it seems. 
Her body drooping as though drowsy dreams 
Clung yet about her, while one limb outthrown 
From the scant vesture all the grace has caught 
Which, shunning nature, lives in art alone. 



IN A BALL-ROOM. 109 



n. 



The dancers pass the statue one and all, 
Gay women, handsome men and maidens yomig. 
In sheen of silk and gleam of jewels rare, 
Threading the footsteps of their leader tall, 
Who, moving slowly down the spacious hall, 
Returns and notes that flower held in air. 
And starts as if by bitter mem'ry stung. 
While steadily the notes arise and fall. 
Proud, careless, haughty, with the mocking jest 
Fresh on his lips, he trembles as with cold, 
Seeing that arm so like to hers in mould. 
And then — he draws his partner to his breast, 
And moves her thro' the waltz less carelessly, 
That she he lov'd is in her grave at rest. 



110 RETROSPECTION . 



THE CARD-PLAYER. 

" Dead," did you say? I had not heard — 
Your turn to deal. I knew her well 
Before her marriage, when she drew 
Hearts after her, as ladies do 
In whom we see divinely blent. 
Beauty and grace to ravishment. 
That holds the soul as in a spell. 

She had such dainty ways, and when — 
Hearts trumps ? I pass — and when her eyes 
Met yours, you felt no longer wise, 
But stupid and asham'd and mean. 
So spiritual and serene. 
So full of gentle dignity 
And lily loveliness, was she 
In her pure life's sufficiencies. 

I mind me how, one autumn day, 
Just Avhen the leaves were turning red, 
I met her near the bridge where drones 
The brook along its path of stones ; 
And shadows in the willows high 
Drop thro' the leafy canopy. 
And o'er the sylvan way are shed. 



THE CARD-PLAYEK. Ill 

She bore a pitcher, old and quaint, 
And, dimpling to the color'd rim, 
The water sparkled in the sun ; 
When, pausing, in her girlish fun, 
She laugh'd a happy laugh and free, 
And ])ade me drink to ^Memory, 
Her eyes with mockery abrim. 

"I drain'd," you say, "the Circe's cup"? 

Not I ; nor do I care to hear 

The taunting jest while — how this smoke 

Weakens the sight and makes one choke 

And sicken — air ! ah ! that will do : 

I'm ])etter. Oft upon my view 

Rises that scene in outline clear. 

And thro' my mind there sounds the rill 
Flooding with ripples gold and brown 
The slimy dam, where, in his blue 
And burnish'd coat, forever new, 
The dragon ily, a monitor. 
Cuts the sun current with a whir, 
Beating his fierce wings up and down. 

And while the willows with their prone 
Thick branches sing a low refrain, 
I see a young Rebecca sweet. 
Spilling a nectar at my feet — 



112 RETROSPECTION. 

A holy water — which, to-day, 
Could wash my darkest sin away, 
Were I to feel its touch again. 

She toss'd her curls, and with a nod 
Tripp'd lightly past the shallow pool ; 
And I — I went my course ; you know 
'Twas nearly thirty years ago — 
I've lost a point — and now she lies 
Beside her child, where foreign skies — 
" I lov'd her " ? I ? Don't be a fool ! 



UNEXPRESSED. 

Listen ! how sweet the song,. 
How pure the thought of the poet 
As He sings in the light of fame, 
A melody clear and strong. 
Well, ye deem he is at his best, 
O fools, and show it 
By jarring his finer sense 
With harsh acclaim. 

Ye who stand on the plain. 
Nor ever ascend the mountain, 
Whose feet know but the mire, 
And whose largest aims pertain 
To the things that will profit most 
In man's accounting, 
Ye reckon your idle praise 
Doth his song inspire. 



114 THE POET. 

Wait till he sits some day 

With no one by to see him, 

While truths he fain would teach 

Pierce him with agony. 

Then, then ye should hear his heart 

Call death to free him, 

So fierce are his thoughts and stern 

That vanquish speech. 

He sees the world's black wrong 
As only bard can see it ; 
He feels the world's death fears, 
Though brave he is and strong, 
And all his musino's sfrave 
But teach him that, al])eit 
Life yield her rarest joys, 
Still have we cause for tears. 

Ever with strength replete, 
Born of this bitter lonsfinsr, 
The songs clash in their might 
As swords in battle meet. 
High thoughts and full of force, 
Like mailed warriors thronofinor 
From shadow into sun 
To scale a rampart height. 



UNEXPRESSED. 115 



But not for ye, O slaves, 
Outrings their music holy. 
Which mino'les in his mind, 
As waves merge into waves. 
Never can eye of yours 
Pierce through his melancholy 
To read aright his soul, 
O fools and blind ! 



116 THE POET. 



POESY. 

In thro' the gates of pearl, 
Shining beneath a morning fresh and bright, 

From toil, and dust, and heat. 
The poet enters on a world of light. 

And there the waters glide. 
Brightly the sunny fields and meadows thro', 

And grasses bend their heads 
To count their rosary of shining dew. 

And there the airy fern 
Stirr'd by the ripples, waves its slender rod. 

And casts in finest lines 
A moving shadow on the mossy sod. 

And there, on golden days. 
The happy bee hums to the rose its tune, 

And dreams with drooping wing 
Thro' the long silence of the drowsy noon. 



POESY. 117 

Softly the poplars gray 
Whisper the mournful legend far and wide 

Of One who wrought for man, 
And in the olden time was crucified. 

Softly the sailing pines 
Move in the deeps of sunlight and the day, 

And on the breeze's tide 
Their pennons rise and fall and rise alway. 

In thro' the gates of pearl, 
O sacred realm, guarded by grief and tears. 

The poet's soul doth pass 
To view thy realm and mingle with his peers. 

And there, with glad surprise, 
He feels again the hopes accounted o'er, 

And greets with rapture high 
His youth's ideal, fairer than of yore. 

Safe in thy blessed realm, 
Shining beneath a morn divinely sweet, 

Renew'd in hope and faith, 
He wanders on to find a rest complete. 



118 THE POET. 



ASPIRATION. 

A bird of shining plumage, 

As white as driven snow, 
Sails slowly in the sunlight pure, 

While storm-clouds frown below. 

Its eyes are soft and radiant, 
Its win as are lar^e and strons:, 

And o'er the dark, ao^ainst the o^low, 
It sings a mystic song. 

Out from a region balmy, 

Into a northern zone, 
With downy breast and tranquil heart 

Has come that bird alone, — 

Singing the selfsame ditty 

It sang beyond the seas. 
Where waters kiss the charmed isles 

Of blest Hesperides. 



ASPIRATION. 119 

Ever its music thrillinor 

Pierces like steel the heart 
Of one who, groping thro' the gloom. 

Lives from his kind apart. 

A man of humble station, 

And spirit bruis'd with woe, 
Branded with that Promethean flame 

Which only poets know. 

His form is bent and shrunken. 

His hair is scant and gra}^, 
As onward with his stafi" of oak 

He wends a weary way, — 

Yielding to flint and bramble 

The blood of pilgrimage. 
And to the winds the bitter sisfhs 

Of loneliness and age. 

Life in its harshest semblance 
Has mock'd his purest dreams, 

And failure of Medusa brows 
Distorted all his schemes. 

Alone, despis'd and homeless. 
Keeping the deathward course. 

He hears that bird against the sun 
His cheerinor notes rehearse. 



120 THE POET. 

He hears, and all his being 
Thrills with a joy complete, 

While like a harp his genius wakes, 
Hailinoj that music sweet. 

Not for the gold of princes, 

Not for the joys of sense. 
Would he, the wretched, old and worn. 

Sell his inheritance. 

For him that beauteous songster 
Has brav'd the northern clime, 

For him, above the brooding storm. 
Rises the strain sublime. 

For him, against the sunlight. 
With darkness spread below. 

Circles that bird of motion soft. 
And plumes as white as snow. 



nature's homage to the poet. 121 



NATURE'S HOMAGE TO THE POET. 

The tide crawls in from deep to strand, 

To kiss his feet with ripples clear, 
And crumpled shells that deck the sand 
Fling out their tints when he is near ; 
For him the shy, 
Bright l)utterfly 
Floats with the sunbeam down the air 
As goldenly and silently. 

For him in all the gardens gay 

The pansies blossom year on year ; 
And lo ! as if to shield his way. 

The grasses keen their blades uprear ; 
And in a row 
The tfilips blow 
Their gorgeous trumpets to the sun, 
And swing them with a motion slow. 



122 THE POET. 

The breeze that stirs the water blue 

Which stripes j^on reach of green, my dear, 
Sing^ not for me, nor yet for you, 
But for his fine poetic ear : 
Its meaning wise 
Upon his eyes 
Grows luminous as point of star 
Which cuts the film of dusky skies. 

The Poet, once a god, has come 

To bless the world with music-cheer, 
And at his voice the birds are dumb. 
As though enrapt such notes to hear ; 
And in the vale 
The daisies frail 
Lift up their tambourines of white, 
And beat them on the passing gale. 

Be sure you give with willing heart 
A share of love and praise sincere 
To him, the worthy son of art. 

Whose home is in a larger sphere ; 
Nor greet with scorn 
His lightest song. 
But stand with reverent eyes and see 
The spirit-bards that roun'd him throng. 



WITH KEATS. 123 



WITH KEATS. 

Now, while the leafless branches toss and swing, 
Moaning their former verdure and the light 
Of summer, which no more shall o'er them fling 
Its flakes of sunshine, and the stormy night 
Draws closer its wet curtain, let me hear 
Thy Nightingale once more its ditty sing. 

And as its music gladdens all the gloom, 
As thrillingly, perchance, as on that eve 
When, sitting with sad thought beneath the doom 
Of thy brief life, its music woke to leave 
liapture on all thy senses, quit, dear Heart, 
For one brief hour the quiet of the tomb, — 

And take this chair beside me, where the glow 

Of yonder fire shall flicker o'er thy face. 

To lighten up its pallor, and bestow 

On ev'ry feature an ideal grace. 

Such as thy thought gave to Hyperion's strong 

A majesty which souls exalted know. 



124 THE POET. 

And be thou comforted ; for thou hast won 
The laurel, and thy name is writ no more 
On water, but beneath Fame's blazing sun 
It shines on adamant and shall endure ; 
And those who mock'd thee speak no more the 

word 
Of scorn and hatred, for their course is run. 

Let me believe that at thy feet I kneel 

And love thee, — for 'twas love that pass'd thee 

While subtilely along our senses steal 
The rich delights of perfect sympathy, 
And thou shalt be my Porphyro, and I, 
Thy Madeline, will heed thy fond appeal. 

And through this " elfin storm from fairy land," 
Like home-returning eagles we will hie 
From life's Siberian waste to that far land 
Lit by the dawn of immortality, — 
For who can ponder on such gifts as thine. 
Nor look beyond the grave at Love's command ! 

Forever on through realms of being new, 
Unsought, unheeded, will we keep our course, 
While fairer scenes than all thy dreamings drew 
In days whilome, will our glad eyes rehearse, — 
Reaches of amber sky, and strips of plain 
With blossoms brighter than in Eden blew ; — 



WITH KEATS. 125 

And pebbly shores where, girt by birch and pine 
Sonorous, rolls the grass in waves of green, 
And the pink blossoms of the hardy vine 
Balance like buoys on the billowy sheen, 
And shards of granite glittering, and white 

sands, 
And seaweed with its beads adrip with brine. 

Methinks that l^rave Lorenzo, when he drew 
Towards the " bower of hyacinth and musk," 
Or wan Endymion drowsing in the dew 
When first Diana sought him in the dusk, 
Felt not the ecstasy that will be ours, 
Love-led, sun-lighted, all the ages through ! 

Yes, thy fair ])ody for a time discards 
Corruption's weight, and gathers up once more 
Its beauteous parts, nor time nor space retards. 
Now thou art v/ith me — ah ! and I adore ! — 
And outward swiftly from the flesh we glide, 
"Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards." 

Nay, I but dream and dream, while on the hearth 
The embers darken, and without the sleet 
Sounds louder its harsh trump, as if in mirth 
That hope is a mirage, and love a cheat, 
And that from worthy souls we keep the tithes 
Of homage due — till they have pass'd from 
earth ! 



126 THE POET. 



THE BROOK'S LAMENT FOR BURNS. 

A brook sang softl}^ in the wood 

By mossy stones and breezy ferns : 
"I long for him to wake my fame, 
The man whom poets fondly name 

Sweet Robert Burns. 

"My roses bend on weary stalks, 

And cast their leaves when fall returns, 
For something from their cheer is lost, 
Now he is gone who priz'd them most, — 
Fond Ro])ert Burns. 

" My daisies drop their fragrant tears 

And fill the grasses' spiral urns. 
To honor him whose eager eye 
Could all their covert charms espy, — 
Keen Robert Burns ! 

"And daily to my limpid wave, 
The lily bright its cup upturns 



THE brook's lament FOR BURNS. 127 

To drink to him whose songs entwine 
Their tendrils with the purple vine,* — 
Our Bacchus Burns. 

"My winds steal upward from the shore 

Where jagged rocks the billow spurns, 
And sweetly on the summer day 
They breathe a pensive roundelay 
For tuneful Burns. 

" I call him in the eerie night 

While heart for heart with passion yearns : 
But lass and laird shall watch in vain 
For him who knew so well their pain, — 
The lover Burns. 

" I call him when the fainting year 

Through falling leaves its fate discerns : 
Nor yet responds that fearless tongue 
Whose words o'er time and death have rung, — 
Immortal Burns ! " 

The brook goes singing on its track, 
And at the deep this lesson learns ; 
However gifted man may be, 
There waits for him death's mystery. 
Alas, dear Burns ! 

* 'Tis the Vine ! 'tis the Vine ! ev'ry Spirit exclaim'd, 
Hail, hail to the wine-tree, all hail ! — Moore;. 



128 THE POET. 



THE POET-INFIDEL. 

Shelley ! thy proud white spirit, condor-brave, 
Kept to its Alpine height until thy day 
Darken'd and was no more, and bigotry 
And scorn and pious hatred bless'd the wave 
That swept in wrath thy beauty to the grave. 
We who look back would fain anoint with care 
Thy blessed course, and in love's cerements rare 
Enwrap thee, l)ut an angel guards thy grave. 
He sits with ashen face and eyes of scorn. 
Erect, unmov'd; and some esteem him Fate, 
While others, shrinking, hail him as Too Late ; 
And "Lo ! " he says, "ye crucify at morn 
Your heroes, and at night would desecrate 
The tomb, their bleeding bodies to adorn." 



Yes, thou hast gone, brave heart, to seek thy 

peers. 
Who fell on the bleak desert of the dead. 
And Rachel- wise we w^eep uncomforted, 
Though sweetly rings thy voice along the years. 



THE POET-INFIDEL. 129 

Still, Error bold her hydra-head uprears, 
And the priest lolls in purple, while without, 
Cold and anhunger'd, bearing pain and doubt, 
His slaves delve on, regardless of thy jeers. 
Was thy life wasted ? didst thou write for naught, 
O gifted Soul? or didst thou live to see 
The perfect rounding of thy destiny 
By stern events? — while from thy pain was 

caught 
A flamino' truth to lio'ht the days to be, 
When all shall kno^v it was a man who taus-ht ! 



130 THE POET. 



A GREETING TO POETS. 

O hearts that are loving and true, 
O hearts that are fearless and strong 

To bear and to dare to the end, 
To wait under shadow or shine, 
With faith and with patience divine ! 

I greet you as friend greeteth friend. 

You look on the plain and the cape, 
And ships coming in from the deep 

With treasure of gold and of silk. 
And list to the waters that pour 
In music the l)right pebbles o'er. 

Their foam-caps as argent as milk. 

You hear the soft song of the [)ines 
Where boughs weave their shadow of leaves, 

And mosses are dank by the brake, 
And squirrels outflashing are seen 
To leap down a cavern of green, 

As rapids leap down to the lake. 



A GREETING TO POETS. 131 

Not vainly for you doth the cloud 
Turn sunward its mystical shield, 

All flaming with scarlet and sheen, 
As gorgeous as that which of yore 
The Arthur-lov'd Lancelot bore 

In days of the fond "lily queen." 

Not vainly for you doth the grove 
Sweep softly its moss-laden harp, 

And give to the morning the lays 
Which often to Daphne were sung. 
When round her the laurel-green hung. 

And winds sought her long in amaze. 

Your souls are attun'd to the spheres, 
O poets, O lovers, O knights ! 

And you are the gods of to-day, 
More comely, more noble, more blest, 
Than those who have enter'd their rest 

To slumber forever and aye. 

Yet lovely were they in their youth, 
From poet Apollo, who swept 

The lyre bewailing his loss. 
To sweet Ganymede whose face 
In Jupiter's kingdom found grace. 

Or grand-hearted Christ on the cross. 



132 THE POET. 

I see Him on Calvary's hill, 
Where darkness rolls over the clay, 

And temples are rock'd by the blast, 
And His face lights the horror and night, 
A luminous statue of white, 

Benifi^nant and strand to the last. 

What marvel, dear poets of old. 

That, smiting your harps through the years. 

You sing in divinest accord : 
" He treads our Olympus of faith. 
The refuge, the comfort in death, 

The perfect, the only^ our God ! " 

O hearts that are loving and true, 
O hearts that are fearless and strong 

To bear and to dare till the end. 
To wait under shadow or shine, 
With faith and with patience divine ! 

I love you as friend loveth friend. 



THE CITY BY LAMPLIGHT. 

Yonder a line of golden balls 

Glows on the black of the chilly night, 
And there, as those cars swing round the curve, 

We see the flash of a crimson light. 
With others tawny, and soft, and bright ; 

And here overhead an electric sun 

Burns its globe of white, — 
The watchman Avhose big round eye of powT 

Looks from his height 

From hour to hour. 

Jingle ! jangle ! the cars drag by, 
Rumble ! rumble ! the wheels roar by, 

While the thousand feet 

Keep up their beat 

On the stony street. 



134 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Hurrying, woriying, jostling, go 

The human ants 

On this hill of life 

That looks so low, 
So mean, to the angels up in heaven, — 
But they were forgotten long ago. 

Jingle ! jangle ! the cars drag by, 
Rumble ! rumble ! the wheels roar by, 

While the weary feet 

Forever beat 

On the cruel street. 

Nobody cares for his brother-man. 

Nobody cares for the Christ of old. 

In this greed for gold. 

This search for ease, 

This lust for fame, — 

He is but a name ! 
Hark ! how they come and go. 
The crowds that jostle so ! 
Hark ! how they thread their way unweetingly 
To death's cavern dim and damp 

That yawns below ! 

Wherefore this fret and din? 

Wherefore this tryst with sin? 

This toil, this woe? 



REFORMERS. 135 



REFORMERS. 

Climb on, heroic Souls, 

From night to day. 
Ye who have nerve to dare 

The giddy way ! 
Climb till, through toil and pain, 
The starry height ye gain. 

Ye are the workers brave 

That soon or late 
Surely shall bring the New 

To Church and State ; 
Ye are embassadors 
Chosen by Freedom's Cause. 

Sad are the hearts of men, 

Dead are their creeds, 
Naught comes through all the years 

To meet their needs ; 
Weeping, they turn to ye. 
Nobly to set them free. 



136 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

On, then, heroic Souls, 
Tho' dark the hour : 

Strength shall descend to cheer 
When faints your pow'r ; 

Yea, till the night be gone, 

On ! to the glory, on ! 



THE COST OF GREATNESS. 137 



THE COST OF GREATNESS. 

ACROSTIC. 

Except thro' pain, thou canst not reach the 

higher ; * 
Desist from toil, and fame will fickle ])e, 
What time thou giv'st thy thought to re\'elry, 
Indulging harmful ease and young desire. 
Not hope alone achieves, tho' hope is strong. 

But constant purpose. Those who most aspire, 

Lal)or as those who serve a tyrant slave , 
Omitting neither care nor patience long. 
What matter tho' the course be dark and cold, 
Essay to win the race and gain the cup of gold ! 

* There is a lower and a liigher. — Tennyson. 



138 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE HEIGHTS. 

Beyond the valley fresh with flow'rs, 

And morning dew and sighing wind, 
Where linger long the summer hours, 

Its purest joys and sweets to find ; 
Above the plain of sober green, 

O'ershadow'd by foreboding skies. 
Where youth assumes a graver mien, 

The bare and rugged heights arise. 
And on their summit, strong and grand, 

Unshaken by the stormy blast. 
The towers of Fame and Knowledge stand. 

Whose light is ever downward cast. 
And mortals on the quiet plain. 

Behold their splendor thro' the night, 
And some with tears have said,"'Tis vain ! 

I cannot reach yon distant height.'' 
But braver hearts, whose hopes are strong, 

Whose patience cheers the sunless day. 
Whose earnest faith surviveth long, 

Though dreams depart and friends betray. 



THE HEIGHTS. 139 



Such hearts with joyous throb have hail'd 
The promise which their <?enius ffives. 

And toiling on, have never fail'd 

To reach the heights where glory lives. 



140 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE RIVER. 

Sing, happy river, to the distant sea, 

Beneath thy sunny banks of starry flow'rs. 
While from yon grove the wild bird's melody 
Trills sweetly, purely, over hill and lea, 
To float in fine, clear notes 
x^Ldown the ebbing hours. 

Thv waters ^lint jimono: the hollow reeds. 

And thro' the alders dark that rustle low, 
While morning breezes from the fragrant meads 
Steal thro' the ferns to tell the many deeds 

Which have been wrought by time, 
Who cannot stay thy flow. 

Around thee is the charm of summer's day, — 

Green fields and sighing trees and golden moss, 
But when this beauty shall have pass'd away. 
Thou wilt glide on thro' change and thro' decay. 

Nor pause to mark the blight, 

Or to lament thy loss. 



THE RIVER. 141 

Thy fearless waves shall lave the pebbles still, 

Shall laugh and ripple to the wintry blast, 
And push their course with an undaunted will 
Thro' snow and ice, thro' valley and by hill, 
To meet with joy the sea. 
And claim their own at last. 

Sing, O my River, for thy soul is strong, 

Sino^ thro' the nio^ht-time to a barren shore. 
No right hath man to chide thy joyous song, 
For thou art blest, tho' shadows o'er thee throng. 

While onward is thy way, 

Aye, on forevermore ! 



142 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



MAGURRAWOC MOUNTAIN. 

Bare and grim it faces the west, 

To watch the sunset tossing high 
Its gorgeous jets that change and fall, 

And sink in tliat mighty fount, the sky ; 
And the river, with longing musical, — 
An Alpheus fretting against the beach 
For an Arethusa out of reach. 

Yes, it is bleak with snow to-day ; 

But come when Nature cuts again 
By old-time patterns the maple leaves, — 

Scallop'd and satiny, vein on vein, — 
And packs them into their husks, and heaves 
Them upward towards the waiting sun. 
Which shall pry them open, one by one. 

Come when the wind is all astir 

To smooth with care their creases fine, 
As they loll and swing on threads of wood. 

While the mouse-like eyes of the sparrow shine 
Where she sits and dreams of her future brood, 
And knows that a lulla1)y will be 
Sung over their cot incessantly ; — 



MAGUKRAWOC MOUNTAIN. 143 

While the robin leaps from bough to bough, 

Riotous, reckless, a debauchee, 
With gaudy vest and glossy coat, 

And a heart that beats right merrily, 
As the dauntless ring of his sturdy note 

Sends a thrill of rasre thro' the blackbird 

harsh. 
Skimming below o'er the sultry marsh. 

Lookino^ down on the reach of mead 

When the breeze is stirring it thro' and thro', 
It seems like seaweed rank and bris^ht 

Riding at ease the waves of blue ; 
And Mao^urrawoc stream here at the rio^ht 
Is a boa basking the reeds among, 
Strip'd with shadow and fleck'd with sun. 

Never before since worlds began 

Was stream so tangled in the grass, 
Never down softer wave, I ween. 

Did white cloud-shallop more lightly pass ; 
And never on pines of needles keen 
Did sunshine pour a richer glow 
Than that which Magurrawoc can show. 

This in summer ; but now the sleet 
Drives its sail o'er the frozen plain. 

While thund'rino; on thro' smoke and snow 
There comes the belated " Princeton train," 



144 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Keeping the course of the river's flow, 

Where the trees stand stifl" and bare as stone, 
To tell how the winter holds its own. 

The whistle shrieks thro' frosty air, 

The smoke upcoils and melts away. 
And silence closes o'er the sound. 

As when waters meeting suddenly 
Engulph a boat in their depths profound ; 
And ever old grim Magurrawoc 
Uplifts his ice-crown'd head of rock. 



THE RISING MOON AT SEA. 145 



THE RISING MOON AT SEA. 

Climbing the glittering stairway of the sea, 
Thou swingest into view, year after year. 
The mellow radiance of thy golden sphere, 
Fall, large, serene, and girt with majesty, — 
A presence in the heavens, which, to me. 
Symbols a lofty Soul that hath not fear. 
But keeps its course alone with much of cheer, 
Undaunted by the past or the to-be. 

How beautiful thy lustre on our track. 
Where the foam marks it thro' the waves of steel, 
And how, against the night, thy rays reveal 
Spar, sail and pennon, and yon dreamy youth 
Turning with ready hands the polish'd wheel, 
His gaze bent forward, calmly, — never back. 



146 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE MOON'S VIGIL. 

Suggested by reading the beautiful " Fairy Tales" of Hans Chris- 
tain Andersen. 

I, the full moon, sitting among my stars,* 

To watch the ocean's flow, 
See a wide vale girded by lines of spruce. 

And white with drifting snow. 

And slowly thro' the silence and the chill, 

Led by his shadow long, 
A lover hies, cheering the pathless way 

With notes of tender song. 

His breath comes panting from his ample chest. 

To gleam against my light, 
And o'er his beard of tawn the stinging frost 

Sprinkles its powder white. 

Against the drift, with glowing cheek and eyes. 

He tends with eager feet. 
As thouofh no star of ill could ever rise 

In love's horizon sweet. 



♦And haply the Queen Moon is on her throne, 
ClusterM around by all her starry Fays. — Keats, 



THE moon's vigil. 147 

I see a grove, leafless, and gray, and stark, 

Where the winds make their din, 
And note a cabin's smoke upfling its coils. 

Telling of warmth within. 

And from the garden plot a spaniel brown 

Rushes along the wood, 
While the sharp echoes waken to its bark, 

And fill the solitude. 

My rays smite on the threshold, and the dog 

Forces the portal wide. 
And the rich fire-glow and the mellow lamp 

Outpour their ruddy tide. 

A moment with his eyes turn'd to my light. 

As if to learn his fate, 
The man stands by the doorway — bares his 
head — 

Enters — "Belov'd, so late ! " 

I send my lustre through the tiny panes. 

Where long a brow was press'd. 
And see his arms close round a girlish form — 

Her head comes to his breast. 



148 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



A WINTER SCENE. 

A glittering field swept by the gusty air 

Fresh from the stream ; and at the west a wall 
Of spruce and fir standing immovable, 

Where idly sifts the snow athwart the glare. 

Beyond, a single hilltop lifts its fair 

White dome adusk with blue ; and over all 
Reaches the sky whose cloud-forms mystical 

Pause, sunlit, in their course, and linger there. 
The dazzled eye searches along the plain. 

But marks no more the marsh where grasses gay 
Shone in the light, and felt the autumn rain 

Waving its aspergill unsteadily ; 

But on that frozen waste, in lines of gray, 

There lies the shadow of a lonely tree ! 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 149 



WITHOUT AND WmilN. 

See ye not yon mount of snow 

Gleaminir in the sunset brigfht? 
Bars of red and bars of gold 

Fall athwart its disc of white, 
Till the sea-wind, keen and strong, 

Sweeping up the summit bare, 
Wiiirls the ar^^ent sleet alonsf 

Through the chill December air, 
And the twilight spreads its wings 

Vulture-like to hover there. 

So the soul, with genius great, 

Tow'ring sunward in its might, — 
Grand and calm and isolate, — 

Feels awhile youth's rosy light, 
Till the blastslof fate have cast 

All its precious bloom away, 
And the glow of fancy fast 

Changes from the red to gray. 
While the ghouls Despair and Doubt 

Gather at life's ending day. 



150 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

See ye not yon mansion old, 

With its roof-tree worn and rent, 
And its windows where the moon 

Notes a spectral parliament ? — 
Ghosts that stand without a sound, 

Peering through the broken glass, 
While the shadows stealing by, 

Couch and shudder in the grass. 
And the creaking doors swing wide 

As the winds in terror pass. 

Ah ! 'tis thus a human life 

Charr'd with sin and guilty fears, 
Empty of all noble aims, 

Mars the landscape of the ^ears. 
Wasted days and squander'd pow'rs 

Throng before the weary eye 
As the Spirit gropes in pain 

Through the dark of memory. 
And death opes his iron door. 

Saying, "I have need of thee." 

Whatsoe'er ye see without, 

Whether frost that blights the bud, 

Or the flame-enkindled ship 

Reeling doom ward through the flood. 

Or the earthquake's rending rod 
Smitino^ silence into din. 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 151 

Or the battle-blood that leaps, 

Freedom's victory to win, 
Symbols but the workino-s stranjre 

Of the mighty world within. 



152 >nSCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



A JUNE MORNING. 

I stand alone amid the verdant wood 

Sweet with the spring. Above my head the 

trees 
Thrill with the birdling songs and morning 

breeze , 
And a brio^ht sea sin^^s low of brotherhood 
To seas afiir. Methinks the Soul of Good 
That breathes o'er all, from sturdy pine to 

blade 
Of beaded grass, hath wrought this shine and 

shade 
To speak of thee to me in poet mood. 
I deem thy pensive lyre will wake to-day, 
Thy grief depart, thy spirit greet the June, 
Thy fancy stir, and, while the lily noon 
Unfolds its leaves, arise and soar away 
Throuofh lio:ht. Dear Friend, 'tis thus I crave 

this boon, — 
One thought of me while all the world's attune ! 



THE GROWTH OF THE BUTTERCUPS. 153 



THE GROWTH OF THE BUTTERCUPS. 

Through the brown earth iit early summer's call 
The hardy stalks press sunward, shaking out 
Their fibrous twigs ; and slowly, as in doubt, 

The leaves unroll, — unroll with magical 

Young life. And then in joy they seem to call 
Like callow birds, turninir themselves about 
In the glad light, forgetting dark and drought, 

And soon each spray flames with a golden ball. 

The miracle completed greets the gaze. 

Nor wakes acclaim; — but when the juggler 
spry 

Tosses his plates, and on the painted sticks 
Receives them whirling, and ingeniously 

Constructs a mimic tree, his vulgar tricks 
Are lauded well by those who throng to see ! 



154 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 



THISTLEDOWN.* 

Faded Thistledown of air, 
Floating aimless everywhere, 

Thou dost waken thoughts of sadness ; 
Summer and its purple bloom, 
Lieth dead, and near the tomb 

Winds bewail their former gladness. 

Floating upward at all times. 
Like the poet's air}^ rhymes, 

To the empty realms of space : 
And we watch thee till the blue 
Distance hides tliee from our view, — 

Further mortal may not trace. 

And I think how like the down 
Of the autumn thistle brown 

Are our wa3Mvard thoughts and fancies, 
Ever floating there and here 
In the sunny atmosphere 

Thro' the valley of romances. 

* Written in early youth. 



HAD I LOVED YOU AND YOU LOVED ME. 155 



HAD I LOVED YOU AND YOU LOVED ME. 

SHE. 

In old, old days, so far away, 

When we were schoolmates two, 
You were in no wise dear to me. 

Nor was I dear to you. 

Your tones awoke no thrill of pride. 

Your touch no warmth inspird, 
And never once thro' all these years 

Have I your aid desir'd. 

A hearthglow falls upon the gold 
Which gilds your children's tresses, 

And glistens on the marriage ring 
Of her your smile caresses. 

Yet w^hen, by chance, that idle day 

We, the long parted, met. 
There stole athwart my careless mood 

A pang like to regret, — 



156 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

As gazing on your earnest face, 

Familiar and yet new, 
I wish'd you had lov'd me lang syne, 

And I in turn lov'd you ! 

Yet why ? Would I have joy'd to wear 
That ring's encircling gold, 

To kiss the baby brows whose grace 
Bears the paternal mould? 

Would I have kept your honor bright. 
Would you have remain'd true. 

Had you lov'd me in days no more, 
Had I in turn lov'd you ? 

HE. 

How idle is this constant thought 
Which pricks me like a burr, — 

Had she lov'd me in other years. 
Had I in turn lov'd her ! 

What then ? I know not ; for of old 

I never deem'd her fair. 
Nor strove to ope her heart's red book 

To leave my record there. 

The children laugh about my knees. 
My spouse sings on, content ; 



HAD I LOVED YOU AND YOU LOVED ME. 157 

And yet it burns thus in my brain, 
This though extravagant. 

Had I lov'd her in days of old, 

Had she in turn lov'd me, 
Her kiss would meet my lips to-night — 

Heigho ! wife, draw the tea. 



158 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 



THE PENITENT. 

1. 

One who hud serv'd the King- 
Strode from the throne- room with defiant eye, 
And gave his heart to hate and misery, 
And lifting: hi^h a bowl that once had known 
His monarch's touch, flung it with wrathful tone 
To where it fell in shards, sun-glittering. 

2. 

One who yet lov'd the King, 
In tears next morrow knelt him where the light 
Fell on his mournful face, upturn'd and white. 
And said thro' trembling and in accents sweet, 
" Grant me consent this hour to kiss thy feet. 
Or all my life will yield to suffering. 

3. 

"I do not seek, dear King, 
The tenderness you gave me yesterday, 
Knowing full well that wounded love will stray, 
Nor space to stand in w^hile I meet thy frown ; 
But only leave to cast me, weeping, down 
And greet thy footstool as a sacred thing." 



LOVE SONG. 159 



LOVE SONG. 

"Love me little, love me lono-," 
Let this ever be mv sono- ; 
Love me when thy hopes are strong, 
Love me when, in guise forlorn. 
Grieving shatter'd dreams amon^-. 
Thou dost hear the world's rude scorn, 
Love me still thro' all thy wrong, 
"Love me little, love me lono-." 



"Love me little, love me lon^-," 
This my song shall ever be ; 
Love me, nor my ftiilings see, 
Love me with love's constancy ; 
Love me well and trustfully, 
Since I place all faith in thee ; — 
Love me long, and only me, 
"Love me little, love me lon^." 



160 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



EXILED AND ISOLATED. 

I. 

Not in our scenes of traffic, with the roar 
Of toil around thee, do I see thy face. 
But where the vines uplift their airy grace, 

And Tiber brave, as in the days of yore, 

In tawny glory doth its waters pour 

Around those walls built by a vanish'd race, 
Where, musing on the past, thy dreams replace 

Tower, arch and portal, gone forevermore. 

Thou art too noble for the things we see. 
Too fine to be of those who head the age, 
Nor is thy mind in fullest sympathy 

With the barbaric past thy thoughts engage ; 
Thou art, methinks, of the great men to be. 
Whom thou dost represent unconsciously. 



EXILED AND ISOLATED. 161 

II. 

Nay, never among those who delve for gold, 
Doth fond imagination place thy fate ; 
But with the noble, in imperial state, 

Moving, as mov'd the dauntless knights of old, 

Silent, commanding, gracious, proudly cold. 
Yet loving, and in love most passionate, 
With glance to thrill, with touch to supplicate, 

A Lancelot of whom no shame is told. 

The lute responds beneath thy poet hand, 

And Science yields her secrets to th}^ skill. 
And Eloquence, who comes at thy command. 
Unites with Wisdom to obey thy will ; 
But none thy lofty nature understand. 
And thou art lonely in an alien land. 



162 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



A GLANCE FORWARD. 

As a young girl at break of day 
Sweeps back the verdant drapery 
From her low casement's sunlit square, 
To thrust her small face eagerly 
Out past the vines to greet the morn, 
While the fresh dewdrops in a show'r 
Sprinkle her young head's gleaming gold. 
The while her form seems aureoled 
With glory such as angels wear ; — 

So Hope flings back the curtain gray 
That shuts her from a future day. 
Regardless of the bitter night 
Which clings about her heavily. 
And looking forward to the years, 
Sunlit and sweet as fields of June, 
That lie in wait with joys untold, 
Exults as Moses did of old 
Who gaz'd on Canaan from his height. 



TWO HEARTS. 163 



TWO HEARTS. 



ON THE SHORE. 



I stand on the shore where the breakers roll, 

And the wind is wildly blowing, 
And a taper's gleam in a chamber low 
Thro' the wet is faintly glowing. 
'Tis the lamp of my lady fair, 
Who unbinds the braid 
Of her amber hair 
Where the glass her charms is showing. 

Could I bend her will to my stronger will, 

By some fierce mesmeric power. 
She would cross the space between her and me. 
And be mine within the hour. 

Yea, and close to my burning heart 
Lay her soothing breast, 
And become a part 
Of the man her glance can cowei\ 



164 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Hark ! the wind moans on thro' the lonely wood, 

And the tide is still repining, 
And against the rain, thro' the naked trees, 
That flame is no more outshining. 

I wonder has she sought her bed, 
To dream of the clown 
Whom she soon will wed. 
Though my honest love divining? 

IN THE CHAMBER. 

I hate this man who thus rules my life. 

For I read his silent scorning, 
AVhen with careless nod he pass'd me by 
As we chanced to meet this mornins:. 

My brow grew hot — 'twas but the sun — 
And 1 glanced away 
To smile down on one 
Whom I loathe, too, for his fawning. 

Yet could I have fallen there at his feet. 

At the feet of my Soul's master. 
To beg but one touch from those handsome hands. 
While my pulses beat the faster, — 
Ah me ! ah me ! ah well-a-day, 
I will wed with Gold, 
And no lie shall say 
Of the bride, that love has pass'd her. 



TWO HEARTS. 165 



ON THE SHORE. 



She slumbers, my lady, in calm disdain, 

With the jealous dark above her. 
And I who esteem her both false and cold, — 
'Tis strange that I thus can love her. 
But then a man must be a man. 
And pursue his aims 
As a true man can , — 
So let me not wait to prove her. 

Yes, a man should keep to his course, I ween. 

Nor yield to a hope's deceiving. 
And test the faith of a faithless heart 

That is better in the leaving. 

IN THE CHAMBER. 

A woman needs must weep such tears. 

Who will miss his smile 
In the coming years — 

Well, he cannot see me grieving. 



166 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE UNATTAINABLE. 

As one who, tossing on an angry sea, 
Beholds with joy the morn and happy beach, 
So I, aweary, now within the reach 
Of restful days, lift up mine eyes to thee. 
O Land ! my Land ! I note thy valle3^s free. 
Thy woods and streams, thy hills forevermore 
Wreath'd with purple calm, and o'er and o'er 
My heart cries out for their tranquility. 
The nio^ht is nisch, and still I strive in vain 
To reach thy shores. Hope sinks her grief be- 
neath. 
For never world shall greet my gaze again, 
Akin, dear Clime, to thee. Thy perfum'd breath 
Steals from each sunlit slope and joyous plain, 
While I, alas ! drift out to dark and death ! 



A VOYAGE IN QUEST. 167 



A VOYAGE IN QUEST. 

On summer seas and far away * 
The wind is rising in its joy, 
And gayly there the morning coy 

Is flinging colors bright and gray 

Along the ridges of the deep. 

The sea-gulls soar and downward sweep, 
With dauntless eye and steady wing, 
To breast the breakers that upfling 
Their foam-jets that to music leap, 
To ffreet the sunrise thro' the mist. 

And gorgeous flow'rs of amethyst. 

And red, and purple, loll and dream 
Where eyes of curious fishes gleam 
Like diamonds by the flame-light kiss'd, 
And reck not of our fading blooms. 

* Ou stormy seas and far away.— Burns. 



168 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And thro' the glory and the glooms 
That haunt those spaces far below, 
The sirens all a-roaming go 

To revel in the rich j)erfumes 

Distillino^ from the saline o^roves. 

And there they sing the idle loves 

Which move the heart of yearning man, 
And make their merry jest, and plan 

(Unheard of him who onward roves), 

And listen for the coming bark. 

And as its shadow huge and dark 

Glides o'er the mirror of their realm, 
They note the sailor at the helm. 

And lift a cr}'^ to bid him hark 

And peer into the mystic brine. 

" Behold ! " they sing, in strains divine, 
" Th}^ life's ideal waits to greet 
The coming of thy princely feet ; 
Reach out thine arms and claim her thine," — 
And thus the god stirs in his breast. 

For, like to Memnon, night-oppress'd. 
Who feels the slowly dawning rays 
Pierce earthward through the lifting haze, 

He vibrates with a strange unrest, 

The melody of love's new light. 



A VOYAGE IN QUEST. 169 

" Behold ! " they sing, " upon thy sight 
She shall arise, if thou wilt go 
To where the waves adoring flow 

Around her charmed palace white " — 

And oh ! he leaps into the spray ! 

On troubled seas and far away 

The wind is moaning in its pain ; 
The sea-gulls mount and call in vain 
To rouse the slowly dying day, 
And night comes on, and all is still. 



170 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



STORM FANCIES. 



Song. 



The sleet beats down on the granite crags 

O'erhung by a sombre sky, 
And the snow is white in the churchyard old, 

Where the corpses frozen lie ; 
And a ship speeds on through the icy dark, 

While the breakers round her leap, 
And is driven far on the cruel rocks, 
There to sink at last in the deep. 
The wind is loud on the hill, 

And wild on the stormy shore. 

For a day is lost in the wintry past. 

To be found no more, no more. 

The Earl lies dead in his palace home, 

Bemoan'd by a stately train, 
And a maiden sobs with a breaking heart 

In a lone hut on the plain ; 



STORM F'ANCIES, 171 

And a huntsman sleeps by his weary hounds 

To dream of their bootless quest, 
While the stag reels on thro' the desert wood 
With the wound in his throbbing breast. 
The wind is sad on the hill, 

And low on the mournful shore, 
For a child has gone down a silent track, 
To return no more, no more. 



172 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



''HERCULES." 

Out upon the sunny seas 

Sailed the young man Hercules — 

For at times he bore the name 
Given him in sportive jest 
By the friend who lov'd him best, — 

Not the giant known to fame. 

Strong of limb and heart was he, 
Sensible, and just, and kind, 

With an innate modesty. 
And a free, contented mind. 
Lover of the baby folk. 

And the story, and the joke. 

Just a man, and nothing more : 
Patient — honest to the core. 

Full of manly thoughts and ways, 
Heeding Duty when she bade. 
Nor of homely work afraid, — 

Thus had pass'd his quiet days. 



"HERCULES." 173 

Those who saw him on the deck 
(Dreaming not of storm or w^reck) 

Ere the vessel put to sea, 
Spoke the parting word of cheer, 
Saw the water flowing clear, 

Went their course contentedly. 

And the ship adown the bay 
Like a sea-gull sped aw^ay, 

With its sails outspread for joy, 
With the sound of rope and chain 
And the sailors' light refrain. 

And their welcoming "ahoy ! " 

Rockino^, dancins: in the lio^ht, 
Waving high its colors bright, 

Churning up the glinting foam, — 
Thus the ship with all at ease, 
Bore the hopeful Hercules 

Far from kindred and from home. 

Stands he now with thoughtful face, 
While his eyes no longer trace 

Dear familiar hill and down. 
And the rich horizon's hue 
Paints the w^ave a softer blue 

And the isles a fairer crown. 



174 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Slowly o'er the lonely seas 
Drifts the shipwreck'd Hercules ; 

For the storm has spent its might, 
And above its sobbing moan 
Shines the luminous white stone 

Of the Sisyphus of night. 

And a track of glory gleams, 
Like a pathway seen in dreams, 

On the gently swelling wave, 
And that moonlight to his face 
Adds with calm a finer grace 

As he drifts him to his grave. 

From the shadow to the glow 
Sweeps the raft with motion slow, 

Aided by no guiding rod. 
And the night beholds him there, 
With the soft, dishevelled hair, 

Kneelinii' like a stricken ^i^od. 

O believing Hercules ! 

Thus, while on thy bended knees, 

With thy grand uplifted head 
And thy bare and massive chest, 
Heaving with a prayer's request, 

Godhood was around thee shed ! 



"HERCULES." 175 

For that glory and that gleam 
Wrapt thee o'er as in a dream 

(Never brighter shone the wave), 
As, with deep, appealing eyes 
Gazing at the heedless skies, 

Thou didst calmly seek thy grave. 

O forsaken Hercules ! 

Cold the stars are, and the seas, 

And the grave heeds not despair — 
For the strong but draw life's breath 
Bravely thus to cope with death — 

Vain is faith, and vain is prayer. 



176 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE CHILD. 

Sunlight and morning, and a lofty cliff 
Rising above a cataract whose spray 
Is toss'd out in a skein until its thread, 
Caught by the breeze, is wound around the 

rocks 
And tangled in the alders. Far below, 
The green of branches and the scent of fern. 
And jagged rocks cover'd with mosses sweet. 
And starr'd with blooms unnumber'd ; and the 

breeze 
Swaying the grasses by the stream until, 
Bending, they touch the foam ; and far on high 
Tile clouds, the dazzling blue, the silver sun. 
Look thou ! my Fancy ; for along the path 
Sweet with the dew there comes a happy child 
Loit'ring with song adown the pleasant way. 
And pausing oft with bright uplifted eyes 
To watch the robin passing, or to pluck 
Some nodding blossom, or to hear the roar 
Of the white waters dashing down the steep. 



THE CHILD. 177 

High up the cliff — that fragrant shaft that 

rears 
Its green above the torrent, while the sun 
Pours forth its yellow flood, and while the wood 
Sends through its depths a moan — she makes 

her way ; 
Nor pauses till, upreaching her small hand, 
Dimpled and warm, she grasps the flow'rs that 

swino^ 
Bell-like above the chasm, while her eyes, 
Dilated, soft and eager, smile with joy. 
She holds them in her clasp, and strives to draw 
Her white length upward, lying on the verge 
Of that dread torrent, while its waters roar 
Like to a beast anhunger'd, and the saints 
High up in heaven draw from their harps of 

gold 
One long melodious strain of warning clear. 
And pause with pallid faces and arise, 
Shudd'ring, — but strong and trustful. And 

the child. 
Holding her prize, crawls upward, and at last 
On bended knees, while all her wealth of curls 
Veils the flush'd face, pulls at the stubborn 

stalk. 
Which cleaves in pity to its rocky bed, — 
And then ! — there is a crash of boughs, a sound 
Of dashing waves, a shriek of startled birds 



178 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Rising from out the vale with shatter'd i)himetj, 
A moaning of the forest deep and old, 
A sadd'ning of the hours that trace their path 
Still nightward, keeping their slow course along 
That watery bier, and gazing in its depths 
Vainly, and passing on in spectral tile, — 
And from life's heights a lily pure as snow 
Has fallen, crush'd, into the grasp of death. 



THE DUKE. 179 



THE DUKE. 

They bore him down the marble stair, 
The duke whose face was stern and cold, 

And in a barge with stealthy care 
They floated past the guarded wold ; 
And, like to white Elaine of old. 

He kept in death a regal air. 

The blood was on his shapely hand. 
And on his breast, w^here oft a head 

Had lain, — the lady of the land, — 
In the sweet days forever dead, — 
As dead as was her love, 'tis said, — 

And now she could his look withstand. 

No word of pleading or of scorn 

Broke from the lips that once had sung 

Of honor and of righted wrong. 

And dame who loathes the flatt'rer's tongue ; 
But there he lay with blood outflung, — 

A signal to the pow'rs withdrawn. 



180 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

That blood was on his mantle bright 
To mingle with its costly dyes ; 

And thro' the dusk and hush of night 
His jewels fiash'd like wrathful eyes, 
As if his soul with fierce surprise 

Had burst the llesh and changed to sight ! 

The last of all a noble race, 
He slept, forgetful of his fame, 

And on the proud reposeful face 

The solemn moonlight went and came, 
And seem'd to breathe a Roman name 

Which glory yet delights to trace : 

For like to Caesar in his fate, — 

The traitor's thrust, the mantle rent, 

Yet to the last supremely great, — 
For such know not of vanquishment, 
Save when they learn that faith is spent, - 

He floated on, o'erwatch'd by Hate. 

On ever with the mournful tide 

Which sough'd around the burden'd bark. 

And seem'd to writhe in wrath, and glide, — 
A serpent huge, — athwart the dark, 
As if to guard his bier and mark 

How death that brow hath deified. 



THE DUKE. 181 

The wind crept sobbing from the heath, 
And swept the track of barren shore, 

Nor smote those vilest things that breathe, — 
A faithless wife, a paramour, — 
But slowly and with rev'rence bore 

That corse alono- the cliff beneath. 

o 

Doom spoke from out the desert night, 
And from the bleak and sw^ollen ford, 

While vengefully a castle's light 

Cut through the mist, — a flaming sword, — 
Nor did they heed the warning word, 

Nor read the ruddy sign aright. 

It glitter'd on the awful tide, — 

That blade athirst for dastard gore, 

As keen as that which long with pride 
The valiant hiofh Kino- Arthur wore, 
Until in grief he sought the shore 

And fluno- it to the waters wide. 



*& 



And like to one who waits to see 
The battle surHng: to its close. 

Content with wounds since victory 
With roar and carnage onward flows. 
So he, the noble, lay, nor rose ; 

For patient in his death was he. 



182 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The last of all a noble line 

Of warriors bold and statesmen keen, 
By lonely rock and grieving pine 

He drifted on with changeless mien, 

And fitfully the folds between 
Those jewels shone in colors fine. 

But hark ! the rushing of the deep 
That thunders onward to the vale, 

O'erleaping in its might the steep 

While the twain shudder and are pale ; 
And oh ! they shriek ; and oh ! they wail. 

And strive their steady course to keep. 

The night is drear ; the night is chill ; 
The cataract is fierce and strong ; 

And lo ! from over plain and hill 

There comes with speed a spectral throng, - 
A kindred brave departed long, — 

To see how ven£:eance can fulfil. 

It rocks toward the giddy verge. 

That boat which holds the murder'd knight, 

And far and wide along the surge 
The luna torch now flino^s its lio-ht : 
And see ! — his face so stern and white ! 

And list ! — the waters chant a dirge ! 



THE DUKE. 183 

The last of all a dauntless kin, — 

'Twas meet that thus the end should be, 

With night without and death within 
lie yet retained the mastery. 
And gloriously avenged was he 

Amid the horror and the din. 

The moonlight pours along the strand 
Where roll the breakers hour by hour. 

And like a sword, o'er sea and land, 
A light is flaming from his tow'r, 
And she, bereft of life's warm dow'r, 

Drifts, with a dagger in her hand ! 



184 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



SEA-CHARMED. 

Sing thy song, O happy sea, 
Lift to light thy mighty waves, 

And keep ward incessantly 
O'er thy dusky caves. 

One there is both deep and wide. 
One there is both wide and deep, 

Where, alone yet satisfied. 
My belov'd doth sleep ; — 

Sleep and smile in pallid calm 
With the seaweed o'er her dress. 

And one soft and veined arm 
Swept by richest tress. 

On her lily lids the light 

Never falls with pressure rude, 
Nor do restless winds at night 

Vex her solitude ; — 



SEA-CHARMED. 185 

Though with wizard charm they whirl 
Swiftly round her coral bed, 

Winding there thy waves of pearl 
Like a skein of thread. 

O'er the roof and o'er the door 
Hangs the mystic net they form, 

Sway'd and torn forevermore 
By the trampling storm. 

Sing thy song, thou watchful sea, 
Weave thy spell with closer care. 

For the monsters envy me, 
Knowing she is fair. 

Hark ! they throng around the cave, 
Hark ! they seek the roof of stone, 

And the vilest of thy wave 
Claims her for his own. 

O my Goddess, safe in death, 

O my Saint, my all in all, 
Colder lie, nor let a breath 

Answer to their call. 

Dream not, wake not, only rest. 
With the seaweed o'er thee cast, 

And one white hand on thy breast — 
Faithful to the last. 



186 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE FLIGHT OF MADELINE. 

Ages long ago 
These lovers fled away into the storm. — Keats. 

PORPHYRO. 

Wrap closer thy soft mantle, for the sleet, 
Pierces like steel, while over us the night 
Drives its dark chaos. 

MADELINE. 

Tenderly thy hand 
Folds over mine as down the moor our steps 
Press through the storm to cross the rushing ford, 
Guided by yon long beam of ruddy light. 
Slanting athwart the tempest from that tow'r 
Rear'd by my people in the days of old ; 
And lifting now its sphere above the din 
Of the vast hall where Hildebrand, the churl. 
And fierce Lord Maurace fingering his sword, 

Seek me among the dancers. 

Dost thou hear 
The music sursfino: throuHi the s^usts of wind. 
Now low like mutter'd warning, and then shrill. 
Like cries of anger blended with a rush. 
Like footsteps of pursuers ? 



THE FLIGHT OF MADELINE. 187 

POEPHYRO. 

Xay, the waves 
Crashing among the rocks vrhere the long pass, 
A dusky arm reaching across the current, 
To grasp the wood beyond it, cheats thy senses. 

MADELINE. 

Surely, dear Porphyro, we must not tread. 
On such a night as this, a way so fraught 
With peril. On that bridge, vvrench'd by the 

storm, 
My sire, the Baron, trod but a week past — 

PORPHrRO. 

But the hound plunged and sav'd him. Cease 

thy fears. 
And trust to the sure step and steady nerve 
And the undaunted heart of Porphyro, 
Who henceforth is thy dog, thy slave, thy tool. 
Thy lord, thy master. Turn thee from the storm, 
xind lean one moment's space thy beauteous head 
For respite on this breast. Dear, thou art spent 
With the long struggle thro' this angry wind. 
Envious of my possession. In the wood 
Beyond the stream's dark breadth the hermit's 

roof. 
Which shelters a just man and faithful priest, 
Shall hear within the hour our bridal vows. 



188 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

MADELINE. 

'Tis well : I trust thee fully, and commit 
With joy into these hands I cannot see, 
My happiness, my honor, yea, my life, 
To do with as thou wilt. 



PORPHYEO. 

Thank God, belov'd, 
None in thy father's halls, whose flaming lamps 
No longer blaze behind us, feel the pride 
Of lineage like thy Porphyro, by thee 
Love-knighted. 

Lo ! the stream sounds at our feet. 
And w\aters toss their spray with furious force 
High in our faces. . . . Thus ! cling to my 

strength . . . 
How the bridge trembles ! . . . but the course 

is straight . . . 
And we could cross in safety tho' this darkness 
Wrapt us with thicker folds. 

MADELINE. 

O Love, I fear me, 
This tempest is so wild, the river roars 
So far beneath us, and the dark — 



THE FLIGHT OP MADELINE. 189 

PORPHYEO. 

Be strong ! 
Mine arm sustains thee. Yonder star of fire, 
Outshining like a jewel through the rain, 
Is our friends' promis'd beacon. 

MADELINE. 

I have lost 
The courage of my race ; it is not thus 
Those of my house meet danger, they are brave 
And worthy of their father's — 

PORPHYRO. 

Hark ! great Christ ! 
The bridge is breaking . . . Help ! 

MADELINE. 

O Porphyro, 
I fell clasp'd to thy breast . . . Dead ! holy 

Saints ! 
Let me not loose mine arms. . . . He drags me 

down 
By his cold precious weight, to know the rest 
Of death's white nuptile chambers, and these 

waves. 
Bleak, icy, fierce, will watch above our sleep 
Like sentries. How his blood pours without 

pause 



190 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Over my breaking heart from the bruis'd brows ! 
I clasp him thus — and thus sink — 

SPIRIT OF THE STORM. 

Ye are blest.! 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

Yea, death is sweet, sweeter by far than love. 



THE UPAS TREE. 191 



THE UPAS TREE. 



I. 



The upas tree, the upas tree, 
Tossiug on high its branches free 
While winds are roaming carelessly : 
Its leaves alight with th' India sun, 
By its kisses warm are play'd upon 
Until they thrill and glow with fire, 
And tremble at its fierce desire. 

Beneath the sod, thro' wet and dry. 
The rootlets brown entangled lie. 
Safe hidden from the passer by, — 
A matted net where worms at play 
Writhe in and out the livelong day. 
Like fishes through the seaweed brown. 
Floating the dreamy tides adown. 

And none bespeak it scornfully. 

This lordly, lofty upas tree, 

This pride of years so brave to see. 

Nor sunbeams bright that, hour by hour, 

Rain on its leaves a ofolden show'r, 

And, waver'd by the zephyr's breath. 

Drip idly to the sands beneath ; — 



192 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Nor clouds that pause to hear the breeze 
Smo^ to its bouo^hs their melodies 
Learnt on the distant spicy seas ; 
Nor birds that, circling o'er its height, 
Drop, panting, in a strange delight, 
Nor they, the buds, aflame with gold, 
That ope and — wither to behold. 

n. 

The upas tree, the upas tree, 
It swung aloft right royally 
As the lio;ht faded from the lea, 
When slowly, and like one oppress'd, 
A minstrel sought its shade to rest, 
And pour upon the passing day 
The burden of his pensive lay. 

He sat him down, and to the air 
He bar'd a brow so regally fair 
That glory seem'd to crown him there ; 
To smile as once she did of yore, 
(When Dante cross'd her portal o'er), 
And whisper of the fame sublime 
Which rings triumphant over time. 

He swept the lyre, and soon the strong 
Swift rushino; of the tide of sono: 
Bore his euraptur'd soul along. 



THE UPAS TREE. 193 

Aye, bore it, throbbing, far away 
On music waves where rosy day 
Looks on Hesperides the blest, 
Low lying in the realm of rest. 

Away ! away ! like mountain wind. 
Which none may claim and none may bind. 
Though high of state and firm of mind, 
Upborne by godlike ecstasy. 
That spirit proud — so wild — so free — 
A bird escap'd from prison bars — 
Sped dawn ward past the chilly stars. 

III. 

The upas tree, the upas tree. 
Who grieves its deadly work to see, 
Or thinks to name it mournfully 
Since when that poet, nobly bred, 
Bar'd to its dews his comely head. 
And left a form so sweetly made 
To consecrate its fateful shade? 



194 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE LOVE OF A PRIEST. 



I. 



In a palace where the light 
Beats on banisters of oak, 
And a line of stately stairs 
Spread with carpet crimson bright, 
Stands a lady clad in white. 

Lovely as a dream is she, 
With the laughter in her eyes, 
And the shapely head upturned, 
As she standeth silently, 
Careless as the proud can be. 

II. 

In a chamber long and low. 

With the moonbeams' ghostly noon 

Pouring through the casement square, 

On a martyrdom and woe 

Keen as that of long ago, — 



THE LOVE OP A PRIEST. 195 

Kneels a priest with none to hear : 
"O my Love, I love thee well, 
But thv heart is cold as stone. 
And thy eyes, however clear. 
Know nor grief nor smiles sincere ; — 

"And thy voice, though sweet in tone, 
Has but scorn and mockery 
For the creed ni}^ fathers knew, 
And thy bosom's snowy zone 
Throbs but for the world alone. 

"Thou wert never made for me, 
Sorceress of dusky eyes, — 
Yet thy smile is like the dawn. 
And thou hast that majesty 
Which in anoelhood we see. 



» 



"For thy life, once met with mine. 
Would be nightshade to my days ;* 
While thine arms of dimpled flesh 
Did their loveliness entwine 
Round me with the thrill of wine, — 

"When, enrapt in fatal spell. 
With thy heart against my own. 
Drunk, delirious with sin, 

■ By the laws of their Church, priests are forbidden to marry. 



196 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Down the awful steeps of hell 
We should reel to torture fell, — 

" Nay, 'twould not be punishment — 
In the depths of sufF'ring fierce. 
With the glory of thy face 
Lighting up hell's firmanent, 
How could I for heaven lament ? 
• • • • • • • 

"Mother, lenient and pure, 
Christ, who knew the stern travail, 
Martyrs, who met bliss thro' fire. 
Help thy servant to endure. 
Nor at bitter ftite demur ! 

"Tho' my heart break with the stress. 
While my joy is rent in twain. 
And the blood pour from my brows 
Where the thorns incessant press 
In this hour of wretchedness ; — 

"While my Soul in awful strife 
With the senses is upheld, 
Bleeding, on the cruel cross. 
Help me to resign — my life — 
Vanish, tempter ! — she my wife! " 



THE LOVE OF A PRIEST. 197 

III. 

In that chamber rich and old, 
Flooded with the lunar glow, 
Gleams a heavy cross of pearl 
Hanging by a chain of gold 
Strung with jewels manifold. 

Brightly burn the precious stones 
On the velvet of the pall, 
And the moonlight centres there, 
While the night-wind rising, moans, 
Blended with the sea-dirge tones. 

And in yonder halls the dance 
Speeds the careless hours along. 
And a woman all in white 
Moves with haughty negligence 
And serene bris^ht countenance. 



198 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



thp: lady and the rose. 

I. 

A lady stands with haughty gaze, 

Clad in a snow of silk ; 
Around her throat great jewels blaze, 

And on arms, as white as milk. 
She holds a red red rose 

Against her scornful lips. 
While a sunset faintly glows. 
And a lone ship seaward dips. 

Speak, lady, to bid him stay, 

Smile, lady, thy rose beneath, 
For dark comes down, and ships are lost, 

And love grows cold in death, 
Aye, forever and aye. 

II. 

THE ROSE AND THE LADY. 

A rose droops on a royal breast. 

And deems that breast is stone. 
While she who once its bloom hath press'd 

Sleeps on in state alone. 



THE LADY AND THE ROSE. 1 99 

'Tis but a red red rose, 

And yet it grieves to feel 
That her bosom is less cold to death's 
Than to Love's divine appeal. 

Speai?^, lady, and say forgive. 

Weep, lady, my leaves beneath. 
For dark came down and ships were lost, 

And love grew cold in death — 
But I, Love's flow'r,* yet live ! 



* I, a rose, Love's flower. — *' Ouida." 



200 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LOOKING DOWN. 

A BALLAD. 

Part First. 
1. 

I gaze from my chamber window broad 
Down on the steeps of glittering snow, 
To where, in the twiligiit's tawny glow, 

A shepherd climbs with ashen rod, 
And sturdy step whose sound I know. 

2. 

Strange how he watches our castle grim 
Piercing the air with tower and wall. 
As swords in the hands of warriors tall 

Cut through a buckler to the limb 
Till the victim reels in the act to fall. 

3. 

He made the sign of the holy cross, 
And bent his head as in prayer devout. 



LOOKING DOWN. 201 

And now he has turn'd him round about 
To descend apace, as if to cross 

The valley the while the stars shine out. 

4. 

Why do I wish to call his name 

And bid him mount to my very door? — 
To touch his brawn, and see once more 

His splendid eyes light up with flame 
To vex my memory o'er and o'er. 

5. 

'Twas noon, methinks, when the saddle bent 
As the steed sped wildly down the height. 
And he, in his shepherd garb bedight, 

Tore through the fen — my strength w^as spent, 
And I, for one moment, stunn'd and white, 

6. 

Lay in the arms as strong as oak. 

Why does that strange and burning thrill 
Sting and perplex and shame me still, 

As it did at the moment I aw^oke 
Cow'd for once by a firmer will? 

7. 

His beard sw^ept on my cheek and stung 
My face to flame, till his dark grave eyes 



202 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

8. 

"Pardon, Princess," he said, — and then 
My people came with hawk and hound, 
And drew a circle us two around 

Of pallid women and anxious men ; 

But he left us there with bow profound. 

9. 

And Clifford, the Earl, dismounting press'd 
To where I stood distraught and meek, 
And watching the crimson flame my cheek. 
He said, "'Tis a i^oyal maid we seek. 

Hast seen her?" and smiled at his own dull 
jest. 

10. 

The hunters, seeing me safe and strong, 
Laugh'd and wheel'd and gave the whip, 
While Clifford thrust out his nether lip 

As thouo^h he detected somethino: wronof 
By my rumpled garb and torn plume's tip. 

11. 

For jealous he is and of savage blood. 

Though he came of a house as old as mine, — 
Noble all — in unbroken line. 

With not a speck of plebeian mud 

On their pure escutcheon's argent shine. 



LOOKING DOWN. 203 

12. 

He lean'd on his charger's dripping flank 

Till a page came up with my meeken'd roan, 
And I, who had not a fiiult to own 

Save that which came of an equine prank, 
Shrank from his gaze with lids that sank. 

13. 

We rode in silence to where the gate 
Leads to these towers m}^ fathers made, 
And once, with his hand on his swinging blade, 

As if with its edo-e he would extricate 
Some Gordian knot of mocking Fate, — 

14. 

He stabb'd me again with cynic stare ; 

And I, in a sudden scorn and heat. 

Lifting the whip in saddle seat, 
Look'd on his face so cold and fair. 

And dealt him a blow I would not repeat. 

15. 

He laugh'd while his eyes grew fierce and black, 
And I, dismay 'd at myself and him. 
Smote off* a spray from a thrifty limb 

Whose shadow play'd on his ample back, 
And over his length of stalwart limb. 



204 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Smote off a spray from a thrifty limb 

Whose shadow phiy'd on his ample back, 

And over his length of stalwart limb. 

16. 

"Child," he said, as we slacken'd pace, 

"Were that wretch a man of my own degree, 
I would give his flesh to agony, 

Because you smiled so in his face, 

And because he dar'd to frown on me." 

Part Second. 

1. 

Again I sit at my casement high 

While another sunset floods the west. 

And again there climbs on his aimless quest 

That shepherd my Soul could deify 

Were he but an oppressor, not an oppress'd ! 

2. 

Were he clad in purple agleam with gold. 
And seated in state on a monarch's throne, 
I could kiss his feet, and with tears atone 

For hearts I broke in the days of old 

When I vanquish'd hearts for sport alone. 



LOOKING DOWN. 205 



3. 



But he, a peasant, tbe child of shame, 
Unletter'd, humble, and brown with toil, 
The touch of whose finger-tip would soil 

The fabric line of a lady's fame 

Till it blacken'd to that which is honor's foil- 

4. 

Paf ! yet I lean on this window sill. 

And watch him thus as he lifts his head. 
With the light behind him flaming red, 

Where he stands on the brow of yonder hill, 
The murky valley beneath him spread. 

5. 

Always with face upturn'd and grand. 

He looks where our banner meets the gale. 
And I seem to feel his strength prevail 

Over a pride that could erst withstand 
A noble's suit that may yet avail. 

6. 

Can I, yea, dare I, to such as he 

Yield the love which an earl has miss'd, 
Lie on his breast and to dreams be kiss'd?- 

By one who has but integrity 

And comeliness — chut ! not so, I wist. 



206 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

7. 

And yet could my heart once have its choice, 
I would dwell no move on heights serene, 
And Donald musing with pensive mien 

Would start and flush, and mayhap rejoice 
At a touch, a look his dreams between. 

Fakt Third. 
1. 

He came, we met, — it was all by chance, — 
I stole from the riotous masquerade 
And swept from the lawn to the tir trees' shade 

Vex'd by the Earl's stern countenance 
And a stinging angry mot he made. 

2. 

The music rolled through the open door. 
And the light shed down its ruddy glare 
On the line of birches gray and bare^ 

Thrashino' their branches with a roar 
As they met the gusts of upper air. 

3. 

I sat by the little pond that lies 

Like an oval glass in a dingle small, 
Watching the lamp-rays o'er it fall, 

And hearing the bagpipes' symphonies 
As the dancers reeled in the noisy hall. 



LOOKING DOWN. 207 



4. 



Scarcely a moment had spent its sands 

When the snow was crush'd by a coming tread, 
And Donald, baring his handsome head, 

Fell at my feet with outstretch'd hands 
To kiss the hem of my mantle red. 

5. 

" Mother of God ! " I heard him pray, 
x\nd the words were panted on the air 
From his stress of passion, hope, despair, — 

"Forgive this sacrilege, nor slay — 
O Love, my Love, for thee I dare ! " 

6. 

He ended, and the music's tone 
Grew fainter, fainter on the wind. 
And I, a-tremble, dumb and blind. 

Knew only grief to joy had grown. 
And that but once true love we find. 

7. 

I knelt me there with burning tears, 
And lifted to my breast his head, 
And wept, " Dear Heart, be comforted ! 

Love, the divine, has made us peers. 
And all my foolish pride is dead." 



208 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

8. 

He rose as victors rise, and stood 
Transfigur'd, kingly, fair as Sol ; 
And then — dear Christ ! I heard him fall 

As pine tree topples in the wood, 
For Clifford lept the garden wall. 

Part Fourth. 
1. 

The moonlight shows our castle gray, 
With its stately banner waving free 
Where shadows flow incessantly. 

And Donald is many a mile away. 
While Cliff*ord, the Earl — ah me ! 

2. 

Yestermorn, in peasant guise, 

I rode by stealth to the town below, 
Keeping the rude path thro' the snow. 

To feast once more my hungry eyes 
On a haggard face I know. 

3. 

His forehead bore the brand of Cain, 

His hands were red, his heart was stone ; 
But there, in the dungeon gloom alone, 

I held him close in my arms again. 
Claiming him all my own. 



LOOKING DOWN. 209 

4. 

And he, undone by a woman's kiss, 

Couch'd, and sobb'd, and strove to pray. 
Clutching my robes in his agony : 

"Princess, angel, a love like this 

Could wash the world's crimes away." 

5. 

At dawn — but why do I grieve me still? — 
The strong can bear, the brave can die, 
Gaining eternal peace thereby, 

And Justice, they say, must have her fill. 
So murders for murder legally. 

6. 

Donald, my Donald, I sit alone. 
Nor climb again the lonely tower 
To greet our sunset's trystal hour. 

Since love for sin cannot atone, 
And prayer hast lost its power. 

Part Fifth. 
1. 

CliiFord, my Earl and lover bold. 
Thy face is white and scornful yet, 
And thy lofty brow in ringlets set 

Bears the selfsame haughty mould 
It did on the day when first we met. 



210 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

2. 

I kiss thy lips and leave thee, dear, 
And pass from the sombre vaulted hall 
Where the candles flickering near thy pall 

Glance on a naked sword and spear 
Hanging there on the dusky wall. 

3. 

Sleep, my warrior, for sleep is best, 
However the battle roll its din — 
For at most we only fail or win 

And then lie down for the welcome rest, — 
What matter how soon that rest begin ? 



BEFORE THE KING. 211 



BEFORE THE KING. 

She stood before the king, 
The outcast who had sought the pahice gate, 
And with an air serene 
Gaz'd on his countenance, 
As if to read, perchance, 
His by-gone fate. 

Silence is in the room. 
And in the wond'ring eyes of those who look 
Are scorn and wrath and dread ; 
For none in all that throng 
Of daring and of strong 
His gaze can brook. 

Yet she, despis'd and lone, 
Clothed in rags, and faint with want and pain. 
Stood up with fearless air. 
With somewhat of his arrace 
Upon her pallid face. 
And his disdain. 



212 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

"Thy wish?" he said, and rose, 
Unconsciou8 of the tone and action bland, 
(For grief was in his voice, 
And in his bearing high 
Was less of mastery 
And stern command). 

"No wish had I, O King, 
Save but to see thy face," the woman said, 
And turn'd her steps about, 
And down the gorgeous hall 
Deck'd for the festival. 
She went with drooping head. 

She pass'd into the night. 
Her strength was low, her mind with grief o'er 
fraught. 
And through the falling rain 
She wept (for none could heed) : 
" Thou art the king indeed 
Whom I have sought. 

"Once, in some other life. 
Some happier and long-forgotten reign, 
Methinks I knew that smile, 
And found upon thy breast 
The warmth, the joy, the rest, 
I crave in vain." 



BEFORE THE KING. 213 

The monarch sought his couch, 
And lay him down to dream of woodhmd nooks, 
And pleasant song of birds. 
And boughs that trail their green 
Above the dimpled sheen 
Of gliding brooks. 

" No wish have I, O King, 
Save but to see thy face," the vision spake, 
" And touch thy blessed hand. 
And be, when ill betide. 
Thy comforter and guide. 
For love's dear sake ! " 



214 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



TOaETHER IN THOUGHT. 

A sea rolls between us, — 
Our different past ! — Matthew Arnold. 

Alone in my chamber I sit as in trance, 
While the moon on yon water seems leading a 

dance, 
And the pines clash their boughs with a musical 

roar 
As the waves with a shout drive their steeds to 

the shore. 

The fire on the hearth and the stillness combine 
To link for one moment my spirit with thine, 
While the flesh seems to fall and the earth roll 

away. 
And we stand wrapp'd around in divine sym- 
pathy. 

Thy face in the darkness grows vivid and fair, 
With the blue in thine eyes and the gleam on 

thy hair. 
And I reach out my arms, — but to start with 

a moan. 
And stand here anhunger'd, despairing, alone. 



TOGETHER IN THOUGHT. 215 

Thy brow, my beloved, is noble and white, 
Thy stature superb, as befitteth a knight : 
And thy voice like a song would ring on in the 

heart 
Though thy body decay'd and of dust made a 

part. 

Again for one moment I call thee, and lo ! 
Thou treadest the shadows majestic and slow 
With steps that rebuke, and with looks that 

command. 
Till I kneel in remorse and reach out for thy 

hand. 

"No, never! no, never! Begone from my 

sight ! 
Thou knowest the vale, and I dwell on the 

height, 
And our past holds a curse for the day when 

thy face 
Shall flush on this breast w^here another has 

place. 

" Forever and ever that past shall hold sway 
While we circle the course of our soul's destiny ; 
And thy love is as vain as the love of the rose 
Which yearns to unfold where the gods find 
repose." 



216 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



" A MAN OF THE WORLD." 

He enters on the crowd, 
Gnive, stately, cold as stone. 
Bending his haughty head 
In salutation. What imperial grace, 
What ease, what languor, what disdain we 

trace. 
As though his inmost feelings spoke aloud ! 

A woman's pleading glance 

Follows him all the white, 

As her small fino:ers close 
Convulsively around her scented fan. 
Her very being trembling as the man 
Moves onward, slowly, with indifference. 

He casts no backward look 
To where, with burning eyes 
And face death-white and sweet, 
She stands, — to see no other in that throng 
Save only him, her master, worshipp'd long. 
Who reads her longing as one might a book. 



A MAN OF THE WORLD. 217 

His busy days require 

Nothing which love supreme 

Would find it joy to give ; 
For, wrapp'd in cold ambition's ruthless schemes, 
His life no longer thrills to tender dreams 
Since, crowned with fame, he has outliv'd 
desire. 



218 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



MOAN THROUGH THE PINES, WIND ! 

Moan through the pines, O Wind ! vvith saddest 
tone, 

And seek the lonely shore 
Where rolls the wintry wave, and there alone 

Thy heavy grief outpour. 

For from the world a light has pass'd away 

We thought could never wane, 
And from the sky a star has sunk for aye 

Whose glorj^ shone in vain. 



TO A WHITE ROSE. 219 



TO A WHITE ROSE. 

Rose, O proud white Rose, 
Dewy and rich mid sweet. 
Swaying all day in a garden bright, 
Fann'd by the breeze from the singing brook, 
And caressed by the summer heat ; 

1 watch thy charms and see 
With a jealous pang the throng 
Who covet with me the fragrant prize 
They dare not clasp with impious touch, — 
And I would have done thee a wrong ! 

I, who adore thy grace, 

Rose of the waxen leaf, 

Whom the saints of song would joy to bear 

Through the Eden-gates — thou pure, thou 

white, — 
Would have sullied thy day with grief! 



220 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Ay, ill that morning time, 

Far from the throng apart, 

I strove to pkick thee with daring hand, 

And claim thee, sweet, for a bloomless life, — 

But thy thorn ran into my heart. 

And there, unseen of all, 
Dear Flow'r, the soul's desire. 
Will it rankle long in bitter pain 
Till a rose is born of crimson dye 
Whose dew is of blood and of fire. 

Wave on thy haughty stem. 

Thou whom the winds adore, 

And shake my tears from thy stainless leaves. 

Nor forgive that hope, nor lift thy ftice 

As I o^o to return no more. 



GUY. 221 



GUY. 

She wept by the garden gate, 
While Guy rode over the hill, 

And the colors of the sky 
Shone low in the water still, 

And the hilltops caught the light 

Of that June sunset bright. 

And down in the valley dank 
Were the grasses sweet and tall, 

And blossoms nodding their heads 
To the dancing waterfall, 

And the cool of coming dew, 

Breathing the cedars through. 

A-breathing the cedars through, 
And stealing across the lake 

To the woodland dim with shade. 
And luscious with fern and brake. 

And branches that mov'd all day 

In a slow, dreamy way. 



222 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Aye, Guy rode over the hill, 

Nor knew that the maid was there — 

Where the bees sang through the bloom 
Of the lilies tall and fair, 

And the day with glory old 

Sank through the depths of gold. 

He dreams of the future years, 

And thino's that will make thom blest. 

And Strength and Hope are the guides 
That beckon him to the quest, 

And his eyes, so soft and bright, 

Tell now his thoughts are light. 

Tell now his spirit is light. 

As forth he rides to the goal — 

While slowly the night comes down 
To darken her woman's soul, 

To cover the blossoms gay 

Of her love's summer day. 

Ah me ! life's tide flows onward, 

A pitiless fate beneath ; 
Our hopes are but beacons bright 

To light us the way to death. 
While we search in vain to find 
The fi^ood we left behind. 



AFTER LONG YEARS. 223 



AFTER LONG YEARS. 

1. 

Kneel here by my bed 
With sobs long drawn ; 

Yet 'tis well with me, — 
By to-morrow's dawn, — 
Though joy 

May my life prolong. 

2. 

True, the years have been 
Full of dull heartache 

While we waited, watch'd, 
For our love's dear sake, 
And now 

How old hopes awake ! 

3. 

Yes, thy beard is white. 
And my hair is gray, 

And our youth is dead , — 
Ah well-a-day ! — 
Hush ! dear, 

Sob not, nor pray ; — 



224 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

4. 

But assert thy strength 
And endure thy fate, 

Nor believe that earth 
Will be desolate 
When Death 

Opes for me his gate. 

5. 

Here within this room, 
Where the sunset's gold 

Strikes athwart the dusk, 
Through the curtain's fold, 
Love's tale 

Is with tears retold. 

6. 

And I feel at peace 

With the world and thee, 

Since once more thine eyes 
Fondly gaze on me, 
For dear 

Is fidelity. 

7. 

And I ask no more 
At this final day. 
Nor regret the years 



AFTER LONG YEARS. 225 

Which have found decay, 
Nor shrink 
From my destiny ; — 

8. 

For to know thee true, — 

Ah ! so sweet it seems, — 
Kiss my lips, dear Heart ! 

Into death's fond dreams ; 
This hour 
All our past redeems. 

9. 

There ! I stroke thy head 

As in days of yore, 
Feel thy blessed tears 

Kain my eyelids o'er : 
Farewell, 
Love, forevermore ! 



226 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE EAGLE AND HIS MATE. 

Upon the sea-shore's chilly sand 

A wounded eagle d^-ing lay. 
And slowly from his royal heart, 

His heart of fire, life ebb'd away ; 
And slowly to his dauntless eyes 
The dark of death came trembling down, 
While the solemn sea 
All dolefully 
Sent from its realm the ever-moanino- tide 
To pour along the rocks a monody. 

Above the pines in vestal robes 

The tinted clouds went softly on, 
And from the fields the incense sweet 

Stole upward to the morning sun ; 
And dreamily with music low 
The wind crept landward to the leaves, 
And the sparrow gray 
Sang airily 
With fluttering wings upon the slender stalk 
Which bent in adoration of the day. 



THE EAGLE AND HIS MATE. 227 

And in an aerie 'mono: the craffs 

A patient mate with listening mien 
Sat hour by hour to watch a form 

Float homeward through the air serene ; 
Float fondly with a cheering cry 
Their downy brood with love to greet, 
To tell of things 
Which eagle wings 
Ak^ne can reach, as proudly they are spread 
To cleave the ether keen when day begins. 

And now upon the desert strand 

He dying la}^, and evermore 
The waves and wind and poplar leaves 

Sent their fine music as of yore, 
Sung of life's joy, and said, " Be free. 
Greet thou the morn and mount thy crags ! " 
And still his mate 
Full desolate 
Gave to their brood the kind maternal care. 
And heard the coming tide, nor dream'd of fate. 

And ever onward to the shore 

That tide crept in with steady flow, 

And morning broaden'd into noon 
With tints of pearl and buds ablow, 

And in the vale the scented grass 



228 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Bent drowsily beneath the sun, 

And thro' its dream 

Beheld a stream 
Pass to the sea, and heard a murmur low 
Far outward where the breakers toss and gleam ; 

And heard that sea with purple waves 

Greet the warm tide, while from her nest 
An eagle waiting 'mong the rocks 

Beheld a form far down the west — 
Floatini? alonof the shinino^ brim 
Of ocean's verge — a speck of gray — 
"And O," she said, 
"Now thou art dead, 
The day is night, the warmth has changed to 

frost, 
And for life's bloom I have decay instead ! " 



A LIFE MISSPENT. • 229 



A LIFE MISSPENT. 



A rose hung o'er the tinted wave, 

Its leaves faint with the summer heat, 
And strove with drooping stem to lave 
Its fragrance in the ripples sweet, 
Praying the wind a wave to toss 
To where it swung in golden moss ; — 

Till upward from its hidden lair 

TJie breeze came in a careless way, 
And, plucking at the petals fair. 
It toss'd them tideward scornfull}^ 
And said, "Thou fool, in death attain 
The good you spent a life to gain ! " 



230 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



DIVIDED WAYS. 

Two walk'd together down a quiet way, 
Sportive as children are on holiday, 
When Fate, emerging from the pleasant wood, 
Said, "I am she who beareth ill and good : 
One means renown, wealth, ease, a stainless 

fame. 
The other labor, poverty and shame. 
Choose, happy children ! " and with chant pro- 
found 
She drew a circle slowly on the ground. 
The children enter'd at a sio^n she made, 
And one in sunlight stood, and one in shade. — 
Years sped, and to a palace in a vale 
A beggar came to tell a mournful tale, 
And a great lady gave her friendly heed, 
And threw her gold to satisfy the need : 
A lady who in childhood cross'd a line 
To stand in shadow while one stood in shine ; 
The suppliant who, hungry, worn and old, 
Pled of her mercy a poor bit of gold. 
"Behold!" said Fate, seeking that gorgeous 
room, 



DIVIDED WAYS. 231 

"From sunshine one may enter into gloom ; 
From gloom another may emerge to light ; 
The future hy to-day none read aright." 
"Great Anofel," said the bes^o^ar, bendinof low, 
" What was my error that you gave me woe ? " 
"And what my merit?" cried the lady gay, 
"That all my days are spent in luxury? " 
"Dear Lady!" answerd Fate, "go bless your 

star, 
And judge by want how fortunate 3'ou are. 
Not merit wins my gifts, nor do they fall 
On those who prize their honor above all ; 
For were it so, my work were slight indeed. 
And many a pampered knave would be in need." 



232 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



DEATH THE ALL-PITYING. 

In Memory of Harold Clements. 

Sing on, O Death ! thy restful song, 

While stars shine out and winds are sweet, 

And woodlands roll the strain along 
As leaflets thrill and branches meet, 
And waters mild their strain repeat. 

And the young crescent on the sea 

Propels its shallop silently. 

Yon hills uprear their dusky tents, 
Yon valleys lift their flags of mist ; 

While down from heaven's blue battlements 
The shadows throng on kindly tryst. 
And Tellus' grieving lips are kiss'd 

To silence like to that which lies 

On him hush'd by thy melodies. 

I may not clasp the hand which late 
Was met in thine with trustful touch. 

Nor countermand the spell of Fate, 
Nor cease this grieving overmuch ; 
Yet well I know the world is such 

That he is better in thy keep, 

White-lidded in the calm of sleep. 



DEATH THE ALL-PITYING. 233 

No lily drowsing on the wave, 

No swan of snow upon the stream, 

Nor blossom rich, whose petals lave 
The wind-tide in an idle dream, 
While rockinfi: slow from shade to 2:leam, 

Is wrapp'd like him in perfect rest 

Drawn from the poppies on thy breast. 

Dissolving back to deathless dust. 
His body lies redeem'd from pain, 

And Nature, the benign and just. 
Will re-create his life again, 
And he, exultant, shall attain 

Through all the centuries to be 

The good of immortality. 

In dewy blade and brilliant bloom. 
In sea-tides on a sun-swept shore. 

In buoyant gull with wind-toss'd plume. 
Will live the elements he bore ; 
Each atom drawn from out the store 

Which made that body on whose grace 

Is bent the pity of thy face. 

And while the worlds roll on their course. 
Thro' day and dark, thro' dark and day, 

I know that from the universe 
His life shall never pass away, 



234 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Bat through new forms, from out decay, 
Evolve by stages manifold 
In bird of song and star of gold. 

Death, thou art kind, and in thy care 
No fear shall vex the child we knew. 

Nor sorrow seek him unaware 

To rob life's rose of scent and dew. 
And eat into its royal hue. 

Then wherefore grieve I while this night 

JNIoves past with patience infinite ? 

Sing on, O Death ! thy restful song. 
Which all at last shall joy to hear. 

Since hope is vain, and grief is strong. 
And evil reigns from year to year. 

And thou, thou only, canst bestow 

The rose which shall not lose its glow. 



THE body's immortality. 235 



THE BODY'S IMMORTALITY. 

How my heart leaps up 
To think of that grand living after death 
In beast, and bird, and flow'r ! — Oscak Wilde. 

Doubt not of life eternal while the rose 
Blooms on the grave of leaves that once were 

f^xir, 
Nor think thy humble ashes shall repose 
Unheededly where darkness hath its lair. 
No, thou shalt rise again. Thro' dull decay 
Thy strength shall seek the sunshine and expand 
In gorgeous painted llow'rs whose stems shall 

sway 
Exultantl}'' beneath some morning bland, 
Breathing their dumb delight in odors sweet, 
And wooing the fresh dew with eager lips, 
And bending lusciously beneath the heat, 
Or smiling through the hush of day's eclipse. 
Think not, O doubting Flesh, that thou wilt be 
Consigned to stern oblivion, and no more 
Have part with being ; for mysteriously 
Thou shalt be shap'd to uses o'er and o'er. 



236 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Nature esteems thee precious, and in all 
Her mvriacl moulds of life shalt thou be cast, 
From crimson-hearted rose, to cedar tall 
Bravinsr on barren crao^s the autumn blast. 
Thy beauty gleaming from the swallow's wing 
And from the robin's breast shall softly say : 
"Cease, Man, thy weary doubt and questioning. 
For thou shalt only change, not pass away." 
Thy blood in triumph through the hardy veins 
Of the wild stao^ shall throb in tumult sweet, 
And in the grasses on the sunny plains, 
Summer thy wondrous story Avill repeat. 
Lie down and take thy rest, and let the earth 
Enshroud thee in its quiet, as the dawn 
Covers the drowsy star at morning's birth, 
Nor vex thyself lest thou be left forlorn. 
Life, mighty Life, shall seek thee soon or late, 
To smile above thy sleep with tender eyes. 
Choosing from out her store a kindly fate 
And speaking thro' the gloom that one glad 
word, " Arise " ! 



IMAGININGS. 237 



IMAGININGS. 

We trim the lamp and sit beside the hearth, 

While whirls the snow without and moans the 
wind ; 

But Thought sets forth a wider realm to find, 
And wanders with the storm throughout the 

earth. 
She sees new planets waking into birth 

To roll through awful space, while sounds the 
grand 

Old music of the spheres on every hand. 
To prove that strength and glory have no dearth. 
And then upon her ears there falls the sound 
Of life — the thi obbing, mighty life that flows 
Thro' lower channels — thro' that world of roots, 
Waiting amid the dark in calm profound — 
And that stern growth beneath sepulchral snows, 
Which from corruption draws its attributes. 



238 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



WHITHER AWAY? 

Whither away, O Ship, 

Spreading thy sails of snow ? 

Soft are the clouds above, 
Bright are the waves below ; 

Whither with all thy weight 

Of precious freight ? 

Whither away, O Bird, 
Singing the grove along? 

Fleet is thy changing wing. 
Rare is thy wordless song ; 

Whither where happy nest 

Shall end thy quest ? 

Whither, O mortal Man, 
Treading the dusk of time ? 

Brave is thy longing heart. 
Strong are thy hopes sublime ; 

Whither, thro' all this strife 

We reckon life? 



ACROSS THE DESERT. 239 



ACROSS THE DESERT. 

CHILD. 

Where goest thou, my father, while the night 
Circles around us with delirious heat. 

And the sands shudder 'neath thy fainting sight, 
And sting with agony thine aged feet. 

While thy scant locks, unkempt, tell of the way 

Dusty and long, and thy departing day ? 

FATHER. 

I go, my child, to seek a cavern vast 
In a strange country lying to the west. 

Where, one by one, the mighty of the past 
Have enter'd, groping for Oblivion's rest; 

Nor can I pause, tho' faint with thirst and pain. 

Nor, save a littl^ space, thy hand retain. 

CHILD. 

What ! wouldst thou leave me, father, thus, 
alone 
Amid the sands ? — while through the gloom I 
hear 



240 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The lion's roar striking yon brassy zone 

Of hollow sky, and, save the phantom Fear, 
And Hunger wan, and Toil with leaden eye 
And sullen brow, no other help is nigh. 

FATHER. 

Nay, child, to Lov^e I leave thee, and to Joy 
And high Ambition of the eagle gaze. 

Who, cheering thee, thy sorrow shall decoy 
As on thou treadest thro' their devious ways ; 

And tho' the night be long, and sear the land, 

Thoult scarcely grieve to miss thy father's hand. 

And think not that the dark to which I tend. 
Will quell a strength which long has cop'd 
with woe. 

Or that thy fear at worst can apprehend 

An ill more dire than those my journey know ; 

For he who long has bent life's load beneath. 

Can feel no terror of the pangs of death. 



THE ATHEIST AND THE FOOL. 241 



THE ATHEIST AND THE FOOL. 

A jester sought his king one day, 
And merry made in quaint array, 
While sunshine on the palace fell, 
And banners wav'd with buoyant swell. 
The king, a heathen stern and bold, 
Spoke from his couch of silk and gold, 
As loyally his guests arose 
To pledge him at the banquet's close : 
"Go fool," he said, "to yonder wood, 
And prove to us that God is 'good,' 
Thy God who sits enthron'd on high 
And guides the years of destiny." 
The jester to the woodland wide 
Mov'd calmly with a mien of pride. 
And with him went the royal throng. 
Who woke the grove with jest and song, 
Watching the while with sneer and nod 
To mark the Christian seek his God. 
And as they gain'd an open space 
The monarch, smiling, slacken'd pace. 
For near him, in that lonely haunt, 



242 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Lay buried one who died of want ; 
While swiftly through the waning day 
A night-hawk bore a dove away. 
"List ! " said the king, in cynic mood, 
" Thou claimest that thy God is ' good ; ' 
And yet in nature naught we see 
Save only grim necessity. 
It heeds not youth's exultant fire, 
Which kindles only to expire, 
Nor yet the genius, starry-eyed, 
By toil and hunger crucified. 
Nor the brave love and virgin trust 
Butcher'd by brutal-hearted lust, 
And left to welter in its blood. 
To prove, mayhap, that ' God is good ! ' 
Nor doth it heed the cry for bread 
By helpless babes uncomforted, 
While plenty, clad in regal state. 
Dwells in the mansions of the great. 
Pause, fool, and con this lesson old : 
Faith cannot wrap thee from the cold, 
Or guard thy life from sin by day. 
Or bear at night thy pain away ; 
Nor can she, whatso'er befall, 
Shield thee from death, the end of all. 
Thy God is ' great,' and yet his pow'r 
Fails to bring back one fateful hour 
When I, a monarch, bent the knee, 



THE ATHEIST AND THE FOOL. 243 

And pled with tears believingly ; 
I called, and lo ! there came no tone 
To thrill responsive to my own, 
Nor did He, though His sway is vast, 
Change at my wish the awful past." 



244 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



DOGGEREL. 

O thou who dreamest on the button mat, 
With glossy length stretch'd out before the fire, 
Thou who, methinks, in Nod-land dost aspire 
To better hones, forego thy phantom rat! 
The haggard Muse now holding out her hat, 
Demands a (^s)cent, that in a sonnet she 
May box thee up for Fame's menagerie — 
" Speak," Paugus mine, what thinkest thou of 

that? 
The dog-eared page can tell the tail divine 
In ^"^ how-wow style,^^ posterity to please, 
And while the dog-star doth above them shine, 
The ca /ime-knights will pledge thy name in 

w(}i)ine, 
Till dog-days shall govhq panting in yfiih. fleas, 
And make i\iQvajpaws to — hist, a hoy, a cat! 



A dog's soliloquy. 245 



A DOG'S SOLILOQUY. 

From doghood into manhood, say the sages, 
I shall progress, with luck, in future ages — 
And strut and swagger with a walking-stick, 
And being drunk, announce myself as sick. 
And buying checks for Tophet, give it out 
That I shall journey by the Zion route, — 
The only way, they tell me, to get through 
The human role without too much ado. 
A man — who, being "noble," won't refuse 
My vote to barter for a pair of shoes, 
Or, having pared the orange of disgrace. 
To toss the rind into a woman's face. 
And greet society with friendly eyes, 
To hear how loudly it can stigmatize 
Not me, but one who holds me as her "king," 
Her "dear," her "idol," and that sort of thing, 
A man — to delve for gold, and lay it by 
For fools to wrangle over when I die ; 
To talk of virtue in a pious tone, 
While having not one atom for my own ; 



24:6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To leave a, wife to mope day out and in 
While I down town the yarns of "business" 

spin. 
A man — well, well, I may be in the fog, 
But, really, I'd prefer to be a dog, — 
An honest dog thro' all progression's changes, 
However high the evolution ranges. 



grandmother's cupboard. 247 



GRANDMOTHER'S CUPBOARD. 

I remember the cupboard prim and old, 

With its button forever loose, 
And the row of things on the upper shelf 

That were seldom put to use ; 
The bowl, as pink as a kitten's toes, 

In a corner by itself. 
And the teapot brown of the battered spout. 

That was king of the middle shelf. 

I remember the line of plates that stood 

Where the teacups made a group, 
And the antique ship on the spacious dish 

That was used for beans and soup. 
The " holder " rude and its pewter spoons 

That lean'd o'er the edge of glass. 
To crack dumb jokes with a merry leer 

At the bottle of "pepper-sass." 

For the bottle was lank and tinged with green, 
And its crown was made of cork. 

And the peppers their palmy days had seen 
When Adam began to walk. 



248 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Hard by was the box that held the knives, 

And a magic it surely hid, 
For whenever Ave fumbled for a knife 

We got but a fork instead. 

I remember the little dumpy jug 

That seem'd to stare and grin, 
And the treacle-bowl and the dish for salt, 

And the pepper-box of tin ; 
And the pie plates crumpled at the edge, 

And the platter brave to see. 
With its Chinaman in a funny hat 

By a big cerulean tree. 

I remember the cooky-crock that stood 

Just under the tier of shelves, — 
And two lawless imps that seized the chance 

To scramble and help themselves ; 
For the button hung loosely on its nail 

And the door would open swing. 
And to rob a grandma old and fond 

Was so very fine a thing. 



A DAY IN »IARCH. 249 



A DAY IN MARCH. 

I. 

At length the storm has ceased to snarl, and, 

as if to keep a tryst. 
O'er the inky spruces yonder breaks a dull light 

througli the mist. 
What forms grotesque those trees assume to the 

dreamer's languid gaze, 
Till a legion of fantastics seems to frolic through 

the haze ! 
There is a warrior gaunt and tall, with a sabre 

at his side, 
And with him is a sprightly lass, gay clad and 

gypsy-eyed ; 
While near them, with uplifted spears, are his 

comrades, wise and cool. 
Who attend the prancing veteran, and esteem 

him — an old fool ; 
And further, with their parasols unspread, yet 

raised on high. 
Is a group of raging vixens, whom no terms can 

pacify. 



250 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But behold ! the fog has lifted, and the phantom 

forms are fled, 
And a sober-minded woodland waves its blended 

tops instead. 

II. 

Here by the garden wall 
The elm trees tall 

Hold to the light 
At the tip of each spray 

A rain-bead bright. 

And here the sumach stark 
Feels through its bark 

A moisture creep. 
And thinks its torpid sap 

Has woke from sleep. 

III. 

And bits of ground begin to gleam 
Like island-tops above the snow 

(Dingy, dank and coarse of grain) ; 

And, with her brow against the pane. 
Yon child is counting them, I know, — 

And notes those brimming puddles small, 

Sunk like cups in a glare of ice. 
As though some Ganymede of air 



A DAY IN MARCH. 251 

In friendly mood had left them there, — 
Clear bumpers fresh from Paradise. 

On-driven by the rising wind, 

Which sounds again its brumal cry, 
The water down the icy street 
Flows in a thin and crinkled sheet, 
While clouds are torn along the sky. 

How painfully the jaded steed 

Drags on his load with muscles taut, 

And swollen and distended joints, 

His ears two exclamation-points 
Against the harshness of his lot ! 



IV. 

Yes, this is a dav when the cat will sit 

On the rug's yarn rose, with look profound, 

And speckled green eyes, with a streak in each 
Which broadens and forms into pupils round ; 

Sit motionless save for the tail's black tip. 
Which subtly stirs and uprears its head, 

And curves and hearkens with snake-like grace, 
And straightens, and falls, and is quieted ; — 



252 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

When the cock, bereft of his msolence, 

Strides by through the slush with a mien for- 
lorn, 

And never a glance at his draggled wives. 
And never a note from his lips of horn. 



SAL. 253 



SAL. 

AFTER THE MANNER OF RALPH HO YT — WITH VARIATIONS. 

In the kitchen, where the doughnuts grow, 
Stood a weary maiden fresh from crjnng, 

(Woman's pastime in the day of woe), 
On a handkerchief her eyelids drying, — 
Sally Slow, 

In the kitchen, where the doughnuts grow. 

Faded gown and apron long and neat ; 

Boots as ancient as the times demanded; 
Hose of blue upon her little feet ; 

Lines of grief upon her visage branded, — 
All complete ! 
Faded gown and apron long and neat. 

Seem'd it natural she should be there. 
None to intermeddle, none to question. 

Or to guess the cause of her despair, 
Whether it was love or indigestion, 
Age or care ; — 

Seem'd it natural she should be there. 



254 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

It was summer, when mosquitoes thrive. 

Busy hens were scratching up the barley, 
And the o^oslins^s had orone down to dive 

In a stream unknown to Peter Parley, — 
Chat and dive ; 
It was summer, when mosquitoes thrive. 

Near the d3^e-pot, where the stockings swim, 

Calmly reading, sat her noble brother ; 
(Sally's troubles never ruffled him, 
Though, 'twas said, they "worshipped" one 
another) , — 

Lazy Jim ! 
Near the dye-pot, where the stockings swim. 

I can see the picture to this day. 

Thro' the lapse of tijne and change of weather ; 
On the floor two kittens were at play. 

Worrying a ball of yarn together. — 
Far away 
I can see the picture to this day. 



SAL. 



255 



Lying gravely at his master's toes 

Was the house dog, with his paws before him, 
SDapping at the flies that hit his nose 

As they buzz'd and vacillated o'er him, — 
Icy nose ! 
Lying gravely at his master's toes. 

Jim was strong, and of a comely height, 
Sandy was his hair and blue his eye, sir. 

And his moustache was as black as night, 
For he used the very best of dye, sir ; 
Thrilling sight ! 

Jim w^as strong and of a comely height. 

He could prate of virtue and of truth. 

Prate of woman's sphere and right and duty. 

Teach the aged, lecture erring youth. 

Stare and smirk at any passing beauty, — 
Ay, forsooth ! 

He could prate of virtue and of truth. 

"Jim," said Sally, "I am sick of life; 

Drudgery for me is never ending ; 
Go abroad and bring you home a wife 

Who can do the ironing and mending." 
(Tone of strife.) 
"Jim," said Sally, "I am sick of life. 



256 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

"She can fry the fritters to your taste, 
Be ^ correct,' and smile to be corrected, 

Do your bidding with a loving haste. 
Nor complain to find herself neglected ; 
Meek and chaste. 

She can fry the fritters to your taste. 

"List to me, my brother, I am old ; 

When her cares have brought her to dejection. 
Never cheer her with your niggard gold. 

Or a glimmer of your tame affection. 
She'll be sold ! 
List to me, my brother, I am old. 

" When the children vex her with their play. 

Or the soup is burnt beyond repairing. 
Tell her freely 'twas a sorry day 

When you met — and intersperse the swear- 
ing; 

Say your say 

When the children vex her with their play. 

"Twit her of a step she took amiss 

In the olden days when first you courted, 

And expatiate upon your ' bliss ' 

Since she came to you to be supported ! 
Think of this. 

Twit her of a step she took amiss." 



SAL. 257 

In the kitchen, where the doughnuts grow, 
Her philosophy the maid expounded. 

Till the milk-pans, shining in a row. 

Groaned for Jimmy as he sat confounded. 
Jimmy Slow, 

In the kitchen, where the doughnuts grow. 



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